Re: Database naming convention (yet another post of it, but a bit different)

"Greg Boland" <gregb_at_snet.net> wrote in news:gumu9.283$xw.73871396_at_newssvr10.news.prodigy.com:

> Here's the deal. Celko recommends plural for for table names, and I
> have used this. Trouble is when going from an ERD ex. EMPLOYEE (works
> on) zero or many PROJECT, then the entity names resolve in a
> singuluar table name. But the semantics of the ERD (in this case the
> cardinality) assume plural. On an ERD this makes sense since the
> cardinality determines singluar or plural.
> But let's say we always use singular. Do we lose anything? I
> think not.
> And if we say Table Employees (plural), does each combination of
> attribute instances (of course I mean the identifer(s)) describe all
> employees? Well, of course not.
> So I am back to a table name (or an entity name) that names the
> class of
> things described. Singular. Person, Department, etc. And it is
> perfectly legit to have a table with one tuple. How would you name
> this? Plural?
> So let's go back with singular Entity and Table names.

I completely agree. That's what I initially wrote. Personally, I don't care what _anyone_ recommends. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. To me, going with plural names is an anti-pattern that I wish to avoid.

> Greg
>
> Greg

Should that have been Gregs? <g>

-- 
Pablo Sanchez, High-Performance Database Engineering
http://www.hpdbe.com