How to create a table for a user in a Database - mysql

I am creating an mobile application. In this app, I have created a Login and Register activity. I have also created a online Database using AWS(Amazon Web Service) to store all the login information of the user upon registering.
In my database, i have a table called 'users'. This table holds the following fields "fname","lname","username","password". This part works and successfully stores data from my phone to the database.
for example,
| fname | lname | username | password |
| ------ | ------ | -------- | -------- |
| john | doe | jhon123 | 1234 |
Inside the app, I have an option where the user may click on "Start Log", which will record a start and end values on a seekBar.
How can i create a table under a user who is logged in.
(Essentially, i want to be able to create multiple tables under a user.)
for example,
This table should be under the user "john123":
| servo | Start | End |
| ------ | ------ | --- |
| 1 | 21 | 30 |
| 2 | 30 | 11 |
| 3 | 50 | 41 |
| 4 | 0 | 15 |
I know its a confusing question, but
i am essentially just trying to have multiple tables linked to a user.

As to:
How to create a table for a user in a Database
Here are some GUI tools you might find useful:
MySQL - MySQL Workbench
PostgreSQL - PG Admin
As for creating a separate table for each user, refer to #Polymath's answer. There is no benefit in creating separate tables for each user (you might as well use a json file).
What you should do is create a logs table that has a user_id attribute referencing the id in the users table.
-------------------------------------------------------
| id | fname | lname | username | password |
| -- | ------ | ------ | -------- | ------------------- |
| 1 | john | doe | jhon123 | encrypted(password) |
-------------------------------------------------------
|______
|
V
---------------------------------------
| id | user_id | servo_id | start | end |
| -- | ------- | -------- | ----- | --- |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 30 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 30 | 11 |
---------------------------------------
You should also look into database normalization as your "john123" table is not in 3NF. The servo should be decomposed out of logs table if it will be logged by multiple users or multiple times (which I'm guessing is the case for you).

In reading this I wonder if your design is right. It sounds like you are trying to create a table for each user. I also wonder how scalable it is to have a unique table per user. if you scale to millions of users you will have millions of tables to manage and will probably need a separate index table to find the right table for the user. Why a table for each? Why not a single table with the UserID as a use key value. You can extract the data just by filtering on the UserID.
Select * FROM UsersData ORDER BY DateTime WHERE User == UserID
However I will leave that for you to ponder.
You mentioned that this is a Mobile App. I think what you need to do is look at AWS Federated access and Cognito which will allow you to Identify a user using federate Identities. Pass the User unique Id , plus a temporary (one use) credentials linked to an access Role. Combined this way, you can scale to millions of users with full authentication without managing millions of accounts.
RL

Related

MySQL - At what point should more than one table be used?

Edit for future viewers: Aside from the accepted answer which helped me I found some really good info here .
I've got a database with a single table for displaying inventory on a website (RVs). It stores the typical info: year, make, model, etc. I originally made it with 6 extra columns for storing "special features", but I don't like having such a hard limit on what options can be listed. Since I've never messed with more than a single table my gut instinct was to just add 24 or so more columns to cover everything, but something in my head told me that there might be a better way. So when do I decide N columns is too many? The data in these columns will commonly not be unique.
(Sorry for crappy diagram)
Current table design:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| id | year | make | model | price | ft_1 | ft_2 | ft_3 | ft_4 | ft_5 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | | | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Possible better design:
table #1
------------------------------------
| id | year | make | model | price |
------------------------------------
| | | | | |
------------------------------------
table #2
---------------------------------------------
| unique_id(?) | feature | unit_ref |
---------------------------------------------
| 0 | "Diesel Pusher" | 2,6,14 |
---------------------------------------------
I feel like a bonus of the second table might be that I could more easily propagate a dropdown containing all the previously entered features to speed up adding new units to inventory.
Is this the right way to go about it, or should I just add more columns and be content?
Thanks.
Believe it or not, your best option would likely be to add a third table.
Since each record in your rvs table can be linked to multiple rows in the features table, and each feature can correspond to multiple rvs, you have a many-to-many relationship which is inherently difficult to maintain in a relational dbms. By adding a third "intersection" table you convert it to a one-to-many-to-one relationship which can be enforced declaratively by the dbms.
Your table structure would then become something like
rvs
------------------------------------
| id | year | make | model | price |
------------------------------------
| | | | | |
------------------------------------
features
--------------------------
| id | feature |
--------------------------
| 1192 | "Diesel Pusher" |
--------------------------
rv_features
----------------------
| rv_id | feature_id |
----------------------
| | |
----------------------
How do you make use of this? Suppose you want to record the fact that the 2016 Travelmore CampMaster has a 25kW diesel generator. You would first add a record to rvs like
--------------------------------------------------
| id | year | make | model | price |
--------------------------------------------------
| 0231 | 2016 | Travelmore | CampMaster | 750000 |
| 2101 | 2016 | Travelmore | Domestant | 650000 |
--------------------------------------------------
(Note the value in the id column is entirely arbitrary; its sole purpose is to serve as the primary key which uniquely identifies the record. It can encode meaningful information, but it must be something that will not change throughout the life of the record it identifies.)
You then add (or already have) the generator in the features table:
--------------------------------
| id | feature |
--------------------------------
| 1192 | Diesel Pusher 450hp |
| 3209 | diesel generator 25kW |
--------------------------------
Finally, you associate the rv to the feature with a record in rv_features:
----------------------
| rv_id | feature_id |
----------------------
| 0231 | 3209 |
| 0231 | 1192 |
| 2101 | 3209 |
----------------------
(I've added a few other records to each table for context.)
Now, to retrieve the features of the 2016 CampMaster, you use the following SQL query:
SELECT r.year, r.make, r.model, f.feature
FROM rvs r, features f, rv_features rf
WHERE r.id = rf.rv_id
AND rv.feature_id = f.id
AND r.id = '2031';
to get
----------------------------------------------------------
| year | make | model | feature |
----------------------------------------------------------
| 2016 | Travelmore | CampMaster | diesel generator 25kW |
| 2016 | Travelmore | CampMaster | Diesel Pusher 450hp |
----------------------------------------------------------
To see the rvs with a 25kW generator, change the query to
SELECT r.year, r.make, r.model, f.feature
FROM rvs r, features f, rv_features rf
WHERE r.id = rf.rv_id
AND rv.feature_id = f.id
AND f.id = '3209';
Sherantha's link to A Quick-Start Tutorial on Relational Database Design actually looks like a good intro to table design and normalization; you might find it useful.
There is a thing calles "third normal form" it says that everything without the unique ids shuld be unique. This means you need to make a table for year, a table for make a table for models etc and a table where you can combine all these ids to one connected dataset.
But this is not always practical, io think the best way to take this is something in between, like tables for entrys that repeat very often, but there dont need to be an extra table for price with unique ids, that would be overkill i think.
Based upon your scenario, if you believe no. of features columns remain same then no need for second table. And in case if there any possibility that features can be increased at any time in future then you should break up your table into two. (RVS & Features). Then create a third table that identify RVS & features as it seems there is many-to-many relationship. So I suggest you to use three tables.
I think it is better for you to be more familiar with relational database design. This is a short but great article I have found earlier.

One to one relationship for same relationship to different tables

I creating a database in which I have an artefact that can be associated with either a project, production or performance. I will call the relationship 'comes_from'. This relationship can be a project or a more specific version of a project such as a production or performance.
I don't want to have separate foreign keys on my artefact for each possible value of the 'comes_from' relationship as it feels wrong to have multiple attributes for the same relationship. The only way I can think of doing this is having a separate table that stores the comes_from relationship containing the id of the referenced project or more specific version along with the table the item is located in.
artefact table
+-------------+------------+
| artefact_id | comes_from | -- Foreign key to comes_from
+-------------+------------+
| 1 | 7 |
| 2 | 8 |
+-------------+------------+
comes_from table
+---------------+-----------------+---------------------------------+
| comes_from_id | comes_from (FK) | comes_from_table (FK table) |
+---------------+-----------------+---------------------------------+
| 7 | 19 | project |
| 8 | 13 | performance |
| 9 | 21 | production |
+---------------+-----------------+---------------------------------+
project table
+-------------+
| project_id |
+-------------+
| 19 |
| 20 |
+-------------+
performance table
+-----------------+
| performance_id |
+-----------------+
| 13 |
| 14 |
+-----------------+
production table
+---------------+
| production_id |
+---------------+
| 21 |
| 22 |
+---------------+
Is there a better way to do this as I am not sure I can even resolve this relationship in a SQL query and it may cause issues when I use Doctrine as an ORM on top of this database.
Your solution is good, the "comes_from_table" column could be a simple VARCHAR or INT indexed field acting as a discriminator field. However, I would remove the "comes_from" column from the "artefact" table and the "comes_from_id" column and use directly the "artefact_id" column to reference artefacts in the relationship table.
Regarding Doctrine there shouldn't be any problem, I did something similar in the past using Symfony2 and Doctrine2 for an entity called Tags where a Tag could either belong to a contact or to a contact spouse. I also created a function in the repository file where I could pass the "tag_type" as a parameter so that I could get either the contact or the contact spouse tags.

MySQL Many-to-Many Query

I am currently in the process of converting the player saving features of a game's multi-player engine into an SQL database for the integration of a webpage to display/modify/sell characters. The original system stored all data into text files which was an awful way of dealing with this data as it was fixed to the game only. Within the Text files the user's Username, Password, ID, and player-data was stored, allowing for only one character. I have separated this into tables and can successfully save and load character data. The tables I have are quite large so for example purposes I will use the following:
account:
+----+----------+----------+
| ID | Username | Password |
+----+----------+----------+
| 1 | Player1 | 123456 | (Secure passwords much?)
| 2 | Player2 | password | (These are actually hashed in the real db)
+----+----------+----------+
account_character:
+------------+--------------+
| Account_ID | Character_ID |
+------------+--------------+
| 1 | 1 |
| 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 3 |
+------------+--------------+
character:
+----+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+
| ID | PositionX | PositionY | PositionZ | Gender | Energy | etc....
+----+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+
| 1 | 100 | 150 | 1 | 1 | 100 |
| 2 | 30 | 90 | 0 | 1 | 100 |
| 3 | 420 | 210 | 2 | 0 | 53.5 |
+----+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------+--------+
These tables are linked using relationships.
What I have so far is, the user logs in and the server queries their username and matches the password. If the passwords match, the server begins to load the character data based on the ID loaded from the account during logging in.
This is where I am stuck. I have successfully done this through phpmyadmin using the SQL command interface, but as it was around 4AM I was tired and accidentally closed the tab that contained the command before I saved it. I have tried to replicate this but I simply cannot obtain the data I require in the query.
I've recently completed a course in databases at college and got a distinction, but for the life of me I cannot get this to work again... I have followed tutorials but as the situations usually differ from mine I cannot apply them until I understand them. I know I'm going to kick myself once I have a working command.
Tl;dr - I wish to query all character data linked to an account using the account's 'ID'.
I think this should work:
SELECT
*
FROM
account_character ac
INNER JOIN account a ON ac.Account_ID = a.ID
INNER JOIN character c on ac.Character_ID = c.ID
WHERE
account.Username = ? AND
account.Password = ?
;
We start by joining together all the relevant tables, and then filter to get characters just for the current user.

mysql user row level access

Have a database with the following
id | userid | name
1 | 1 | John
2 | 1 | John
3 | 2 | Joe
4 | 2 | Joe
5 | 2 | Joe
6 | 3 | Sue
7 | 3 | Sue
I need to get a way that I can create a database, then create users. Each user that I create in mysql limit them to access of data for their userid. Every database table in the database has the userid value.
So whether they are reading ,updating, insert or delete. If it is going through a specific mysql user that I attached to that database, I want that user to only read, update, insert or delete where their userid is.
I have read some things on mysql triggers but have not found anything that will work for me.
We have a backend that has data in it and restricted by userid.
The website pulls data from that table based in userid so select * from articles where userid=1. Right now, that code is modifiable by the user. I would like a way to go select * from articles and mysql only results rows that have userid=1 for that mysql user. The goal would be for every user to have their own mysql user login to the mysql database that would restrict to that specific value of userid that is theirs.
Any thoughts? Thanks so much!
GoogleResult[0] has this:
http://www.sqlmaestro.com/resources/all/row_level_security_mysql/
Abstract
The article contains a step-by-step guide to implementation of row level security in MySQL 5.0 and higher using such MySQL features as views and triggers.
Well! i will suggest to make a table for that. For the whole application
user_rights
id | user_id | insert | update | delete | read
1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1
Note : 1 for allowed and 0 for disallowed.
Now before you do anything first check the rights then perform other actions.
Detailed method including parts of application :
screens
id | title
1 | articles
2 | blog
user_rights
id | user_id | insert | update | delete | read | screen_id
1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1
2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2
In this method you can allow screen level access. User id 2 can add and view articles and he can aslo view blog but.
I may be using inappropriate terms here
but i hope you get the idea.

Structuring a MySQL database for user information

I am quite new to MySQL, I know most of the basic functions and how to send queries etc. However, I am trying to learn about structuring it for optimal searches for user information and wanted to get some ideas.
Right now I just have one table (for functionality purposes and testing) called user_info which holds the users information and another table that stores photos linked to the user. Ideally id like most of this information to be as quickly as accessible as possible
In creating a database which is primarily used to store and retrieve user information (name, age, phone, messages, etc.) would it be a good idea to create a NEW TABLE for each new user that stores all the information so the one table user_info does not become bogged down by multiple queries, locking, etc. So for example user john smith would have his very own table in the database holding all his information including photos, messages etc.
OR
is it better to have just a few tables such as user_info, user_photos, user_messages,etc. and accessing data in this manner.
I am not concerned about redundancy in the tables such as the users email address being repeated multiple times.
The latter is the best way. You declare one table for users, and several columns with the data you want.
Now if you want users to have photos, you'd require a new table with photos and a Foreign Key attribute that links to the user table's Primary Key.
You should definitely NOT create a new table for each user. Create one table for user_info, one for photos if each user can have many photos. A messages table would probably contain two user_id columns (user_to, user_from) and a message column. Try to normalize the data as much as possible.
Users
====
id
email
etc
Photos
====
id
user_id
meta_data
etc
Messages
====
id
user_id_to
user_id_from
message
timestamp
etc
I agree with both the answers supplied here, but one thing they haven't mentioned yet is lookup tables.
Going with the general examples here consider this: you have a users table, and a photos table. Now you want to introduce a featre on your site that allows users to "Favorite" photos from other users.
Rather than making a new table called "Favorites" and adding in all your data about the image (fiel location, metadata, score/whatever) all over again, have a table that effectively sits BETWEEN the other two.
+-----------------------+ +-------------------------------------+
| ++ users | | ++ photos |
| userID | email | name | | photoID | ownerID | fileLo | etc... |
+--------+-------+------| +---------+---------+--------+--------+
| 1 | .... | Tom | | 35 | 1 | ..... | .......|
| 2 | .... | Rob | | 36 | 2 | ..... | .......|
| 3 | .... | Dan | | 37 | 1 | ..... | .......|
+--------+-------+------+ | 43 | 3 | ..... | .......|
| 48 | 2 | ..... | .......|
| 49 | 3 | ..... | .......|
| 53 | 2 | ..... | .......|
+---------+---------+--------+--------+
+------------------+
| ++ Favs |
| userID | photoID |
+--------+---------+
| 1 | 37 |
| 1 | 48 |
| 2 | 37 |
+--------+---------+
With this approach, you link the data you have cleanly, efficiently and without too much data replication.