Beyond Foreign Keys (lackofimagination.org)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by Aijan@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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In a relational database, foreign keys are normally used to associate records stored in different tables, but wouldn’t it be nice to define relationships dynamically without having to add extra columns or tables? And while we’re at it, how about having sparse relationships by associating a record directly with any other record like “post X was last edited by user #123” or “post X was flagged for review by user #456” (who happens to be a moderator)?

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[-] Kache@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago

So... a polymorphic many-to-many join table?

[-] Aijan@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Yes, that's correct. Here's how an entry in the join table looks like:

{
  "id": 6,
  "sourceComp": "user",
  "sourceId": 2,
  "targetComp": "post",
  "targetId": 3,
  "type": "author",
  "createdAt": "2024-03-28T13:28:59.175Z",
  "updatedAt": "2024-03-28T13:28:59.175Z"
}

[-] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago

Don't you want a graph database at this point?

[-] Aijan@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

That idea crossed my mind too, but you can’t really use the full capabilities of SQL in graph databases, and that’s a deal breaker for me.

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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024

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