> Thanks for the explanation, Isaac! Also just FYI, although referential integrity is desired in most cases, there are some exceptions in which you may not want to enforce referential integrity. Typically the only place you would want to allow orphaned records would be in a logging tool or in a record which is representative of some sort of log like a blog comment. This allows you to maintain a log entry for an event, even if the log references a deleted user. The act of deleting the user doesn't alter history, so you still want to retain a record of the event.
This may be especially true with blogs and forums - if a user is deleted, you really don't want to remove all the forum posts they've made because doing that will fracture the threads and make nonsense of those conversations. There are of course ways to still maintain referential integrity in this case, for example by allowing null values in the userid column and adding a field or fields in the forum-message table to hold the user's name, although at that point imo whether or not there's a null or an id value in the userid column is 6 of 1 or 1/2-doz of the other. Personally I'm still not sure what I think is the best practice for handling the transition of a deleted user's name for items like forum messages -- whether it's smarter to keep the user record and simply disable it (which forces managers to look at it when they manage users), to store names each time a message is posted (which could result in different messages by the same user displaying different names - which could be good or bad given your opinion about whether or not their name is part of the "history" of the conversation -- if part of the conversation references their name (or signature), then changing it later could also make nonsense out of the thread), or to update all forum messages with the user's current name information when the user is deleted. s. isaac dealey 434.293.6201 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://www.fusiontap.com http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:236783 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
