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Beyond Foreign Keys (lackofimagination.org)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (5 children)

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"
}

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 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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