RE: [PHPLIB] Extending user_auth table or creating a new table From: Howard Ha (howardh <email protected>)
Date: 02/28/00

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your answer. everything sounds reasonable to me. I was going to
go this route initially, but I like knowing more about how other ppl solve
problems I face :P

One thing I was not sure on... I am thinking I will extend the user_auth
table to include an autoincrement column to use for the join. I'm doing
because I will be using the auth_user table as a basis for a set of other
scripts I will be working on, all of which will need to relate information
from other tables to the users in auth_user.

I am sort of wary of using the hash value as the ID number for relating the
items, because of their size. So I was thinking of using the autoincrement
values to relate different items in different tables. Does anyone have any
experience or comments on this?

Howard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Johnson [mailto:chris <email protected>]
> Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 3:41 PM
> To: Howard Ha; PHPLIB
> Subject: RE: [PHPLIB] Extending user_auth table or creating a new table
>
>
> Being a database geek, I'd probably go the full normalization route.
>
> If every user had every attribute, then that might mean all the extra
> information might go into an extended auth_user table. But here are
> some arguments against doing that, even if normalization says it's ok:
>
> 1. I like to upgrade my PHPLIB. The more changes to the base classes
> and tables, the more work and QA I have to do to install each new
> release.
>
> 2. Will each user need to have their extensive profile read in at the
> moment they log in? If not, login will be more efficient if you are
> only checking against a small user_auth table, and then reading what you
> need when you need it.
>
> If every user will not have values (not NULLs) in every field of your
> extensive user profile, why store all that extra junk? Normalization
> will tell you to put it in another table and do a join as needed.
>
> Just my opinions, mind you.
>
> ..chris
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > [mailto:phplib-owner <email protected>]On Behalf Of Howard Ha
>
> > I've asked this once before, and was told that some of you extend the
> > auth_user table, while others add a new table for user info.
> >
> > If you were to create an extensive user profile, which would be your
> > preferred route? Use the auth_user table and extend it with the extra
> > columns, or create an entirely new table and put info there?
>

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