Re: Plural or singular table names

Ray Cassick (home) wrote:

> Well my company is going through its processes of writing company standards
> documents and we are at the age old question:
>
> "Should table names be in the plural or singular forms?"
>
> I figured that I would get a feel here for what the general consensus is
> from the group.
>
> I am from the school that says plural because the table holds multiples of
> one thing. A table that holds employee information should be called
> Employees.
>
> Some of the members of the group here simply think that the table should not
> be treated as holding a group of employees, but rather it should be treated
> as simply a place that contains information about THE employee.

First of all, let's clarify the context. Are you talking about relational database systems?

If so, in an RDBMS a table represents a SET. The table that holds employee information represents the set of employees.

It's always been my opinion that plural table names confuse the set with its contents. The employees are the contents of the set. They are many, so they are plural. But the set itself is singluar. There is only one set of employees -- the employee set is a set of employees. Confusing a set with the contents of the set is akin to confusing a table with a row.

Since the table name refers to the table, and the table is a set, and the set (not the contents, but the set itself) is singular, then the table name should be singular.

> If someone can point me to a definitive standard (if one does exist) I would
> be most grateful.

I don't know if one exists. I think it's mainly a religious argument. However, I don't think I've ever seen my argument above debunked.

Larry Coon
University of California
larry_at_assist.org
and lmcoon_at_home.com Received on Sun Aug 31 2003 - 18:03:10 CEST