RE: Naming Conventions: Table and Columns

Yeah It's called lazy. I personally feel that ... SELECT employee.emp_fname, employee.emp_lname, department.dept_division, employee_timelog.emp_hours FROM employee, department, employee_timelog WHERE employee.emp_id = employee_timelog.emp_id AND department.dept_id = employee_timelog.dept_id ... is unambiguous - and to some extent - self commenting. If I recall correctly, SQL-92 has a concept of natural joins, where something like ... SELECT employee.emp_fname, employee.emp_lname, department.dept_division, employee_timelog.emp_hours JOINING employee, department, employee_timelog ... would return the same result - The join is on fields with the same name Have a look at SQL-92 -----Original Message----- From: Manoj A Menon [mailto:mmenon@apis.dhl.com] Sent: 22 November 2000 11:12 To: informix-list@iiug.org Subject: Naming Conventions: Table and Columns All, Let me explain what exactly I am after: "The Table and Column Naming Guidelines/Recommendations" I am looking for some table and column naming guidelines for Informix tables - there are some well-known "standards" which say that "use the same column name for the same purpose" - [deleted] Assume, we have CREATE TABLE employee (emp_id int, emp_fname char (64), emp_lname (64) ) ; CREATE TABLE department (dept_id char (6), dept_division char (6) ) ; CREATE TABLE employee_timelog ( emp_id, dept_id, emp_hours number) ; [deleted]

In article <8vgpm5$775$1@news.xmission.com>, Robert Stuart <Robert.Stuart@nfer-nelson.co.uk> writes > >Yeah > >It's called lazy. > > >I personally feel that ... > > SELECT employee.emp_fname, > employee.emp_lname, > department.dept_division, > employee_timelog.emp_hours> > FROM employee, department, employee_timelog > > WHERE employee.emp_id = employee_timelog.emp_id > AND department.dept_id = employee_timelog.dept_id > >... is unambiguous - and to some extent - self commenting. I use a different prefix for column names in each table except for foreign keys (such as employee_timelog.emp_id in the above example), so I would use employee_timelog.empl_hours, not emp_hours. After all emp_hours is certainly not a foreign key! It's also worth making sure all table names are either singular or plural - it's confusing to have a system where there's a mixture. Here speaks experience.... Quite a few packages which access database schemes and the 'do things' with them require that joined columns share the identical name. > > > >If I recall correctly, SQL-92 has a concept of natural joins, where >something like ... > > SELECT employee.emp_fname, > employee.emp_lname, > department.dept_division, > employee_timelog.emp_hours > JOINING employee, department, employee_timelog> > ... would return the same result - The join is on fields with the same name > > >Have a look at SQL-92 Ah! Confirming my comments above, though I was really thinking about PC packages drawing pretty pictures of the schema. > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Manoj A Menon [mailto:mmenon@apis.dhl.com] >Sent: 22 November 2000 11:12 >To: informix-list@iiug.org >Subject: Naming Conventions: Table and Columns > > >All, > >Let me explain what exactly I am after: >"The Table and Column Naming Guidelines/Recommendations" > >I am looking for some table and column naming guidelines for Informix >tables - there are some well-known "standards" which say that "use the >same column name for the same purpose" - > >[deleted] > >Assume, we have > >CREATE TABLE employee (>emp_id int, emp_fname char (64), emp_lname (64) ) ; > >CREATE TABLE department (>dept_id char (6), dept_division char (6) ) ; > >CREATE TABLE employee_timelog >( emp_id, dept_id, emp_hours number) ;> > >[deleted] Surfer! Send email to: surfer at nevis-view dot demon dot co dot uk "I can resist anything but temptation" - Oscar Wild ;-)