I have a table that uses Adjacency list model for hierarchy storage. My most relevant columns in this table are therefore:
ItemId // is auto_increment
ParentId
Level
ParentTrail // in the form of "parentId/../parentId/itemId"
then I created a before insert tigger, that populates columns Level and ParentTrail. Since the last column also includes current item's ID I had to use a trick in my trigger because auto_increment columns are not available in the before insert trigger. So I get that value from the information_schema.tables table.
All works fine, until I try to write an update trigger, that would update my item and its descendants when the item changes its parent (ParentId has changed). But I can't make an update on my table inside the update trigger. All I can do is to change current record's values but not other's.
I could use a separate table for hierarchy data, but that would mean that I would also have to create a view that would combine these two tables (1:1 relation) and I would like to avoid this is at all possible.
Is there a way to have all these in the same table so that these fields (Level and ParetTrail) set/update themselves automagically using triggers?
This sounds like it might be possible, but it would involve some heavy string matching etc. Wouldn't want to dig myself into it.
If you are willing to change your database model slightly and implement a Nested Set (scroll down on the page) this could probably be done easily by having the trigger update left-right values.
Related
My MainTable contains tasks, one of the colums speciefies the TaskType as a string. The TaskType must be selected from the ValidTasks table, which contains different task types.
The ValidTasks table also contains a column called Priority which is an integer.
Now I want my MainTable to include the priority of the selected task. So that when I select as task from ValidTasks the corresponding Priority is added to another column in MainTable.
In the following step I will create a query showing the highest priority figure for each Person (also in the MainTable), so if it is easier to approach though a query then that would work for me too.
There are two ways you can go about this. The one I would go for unless there are overriding factors would be to use a SELECT query that links the two tables and has the fields I want as my "Main Table".
That is by far the best way. The alternative is to use the trigger of the user making a selection for a TaskType to look up and populate a field in your main table. I would not recommend that as it will come back to bite you as your database gets more complicated.
Also, I would not use a text field for TaskType. Your tables should have an AutoNumber as primary key and that is the field you should always use to link data from one table to another.
I'm trying to write a MySQL trigger for a table update (and a similar one for insert) that will take the updated columns and update corresponding columns in another table.
My set-up is this: I have one table (A) with several columns of numerical values and a record number Primary Key. I have another table (B) with identical column names but with short text descriptors that relate to each numerical value and also a record number as a Foreign Key referring to table A. Both of these tables may grow over time to include more columns - always matching each other - each with a simple predictable name (sticking with integers for now). All records are 1:1.
My hope was that I could write triggers for both update and insert on table A that would look at the numbers and, based on some simple logic, assign a descriptor to the corresponding record in table B (inserting that record in the case of the insert trigger). It got rather complicated quickly because I had to query INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS to identify all current column names in table A, check each OLD vs NEW to verify that column was updated (for the update trigger anyway), do some logic to determine the appropriate descriptor, then INSERT/UPDATE the corresponding column in table B. I can't figure out how to set up a procedure/trigger that doesn't require storing column names in a variable to dynamically build an SQL statement. This is, of course, not allowed in a trigger and I have made some attempts at getting around this by moving the dynamic SQL statement into a separate stored procedure. None of this has worked and I've run into so many roadblocks, I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm going about this in entirely the wrong way.
Since I'm very new to database design, I just don't know what question to ask at this point other than, is there a better way or alternatively, is there a fix to my approach outlined above?
As always, I've searched thoroughly and not found any questions that answer mine but, if you see one that does, please point me that way!
When I insert data into a brand new table, it will assign a new id via AUTO_INCREMENT. So the first time I perform an insert I get an id of 1. However, if I delete the row and insert new data, the table acts as if there is still a preceding row (the new row will have an id of 2). This behavior concerns me because I feel like the data is still persisting somewhere. Any ideas of what it could be?
Your data is not persisting. MySql maintains a separate table about your table containing, among other things, the next auto-increment value for your table. You can reset this with:
ALTER TABLE tablename AUTO_INCREMENT = 1
However, be aware that if you are resetting to a value below another valid value in the table, you're asking for trouble.
you should simply use.
truncate table tablename;
I have an existing application (with MySQL DB).
I just got a new requirement where I need to delete some records from one of main entity. I dont want to apply hard delete here as its risky for whole application. If I use soft delete I have to add another field is_deleted and because of that i have to update all my queries (like where is_deleted = '0').
Please let me know if there is any smarter way to handle this situation. I have to make changes in half of the queries if I introduce a new flag to handle deletes.
Your application can run without any changes. MySQL is ANSI-SPARC Architecture compliant . With external schema you achieve codd's rule 9 "Logical data independence":
Changes to the logical level (tables, columns, rows, and so on) must
not require a change to an application based on the structure. Logical
data independence is more difficult to achieve than physical data
independence.
You can rename your tables and create views with original table names. A sample:
Let's supose a table named my_data:
REMAME TABLE my_data TO my_data_flagged
ALTER TABLE my_data_flagged
ADD COLUMN is_deleted boolean NOT NULL default 0;
CREATE VIEW my_data AS
SELECT *
FROM my_data_flagged
WHERE is_deleted = '0'
Another way is create a trigger and make a copy of erased rows in independent table.
Four suggestions:
Instead of using a bit called is_deleted, use a dateTime called something like deleted_Date... have this value be NULL if it is still active, and be a timestamp for the deletion date otherwise. This way you also know when a particular record was deleted.
Instead of updating half of your queries to exclude deleted records, create a view that does this filtering, and then update your queries to use this view instead of applying the filtering everywhere.
If the soft deleted records are involved in any type of relationships, you may have to create triggers to ensure that active records can't have a parent that is flagged as deleted.
Think ahead to how you want to eventually hard-delete these soft-deleted records, and make sure that you have the appropriate integrity checks in place before performing the hard-delete.
How do you retain historical relational data if rows are changed? In this example, users are allowed to edit the rows in the Property table at any time. Tests can have any number of properties. If they edit the field 'Name' in the Property table, or drop a row in the Property table, Test rows might not hold conditions at the time of the test. Would you change the design of the Test table by adding a property names column, and dropping the TestProperty mapping table? The property names column would have to be something like a delimited list of strings. How is problem usually handled?
3 tables:
Test:
TestId AUTONUMBER,
Name CHAR,
TestDate DATE
Property:
PropertyId AUTONUMBER,
Name CHAR
TestProperty: (maps properties to tests)
TestId
PropertyId
I do not think the question has been answered fully.
If they edit the field 'Name' in the Property table ... Would you change the design of the Test table by adding a property names column, and dropping the TestProperty mapping table?
Definitely not. That would add massive duplication for no purpose.
If your requirement is to maintain the integrity of the data values (in Property) at the time of the Test, the correct (database) method is to implement a History table. That should be an exact copy of the source table, plus one item: a TIMESTAMP or DATETIME column is added to the PK.PropertyHistory
PropertyId AUTONUMBER,
Name CHAR
CONSTRAINT PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED UC_PK (PropertyId)
PropertyHistory
PropertyId INT,
AuditedDtm DATETIME,
Name CHAR
CONSTRAINT PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED UC_PK (PropertyId, AuditedDtm)
For this to be meaningful and useable, the Test table needs a timestamp as well, to identify which version of ProperyHistory to reference:TestProperty
TestId
PropertyId
TestDtm DATETIME
The property names column would have to be something like a delimited list of strings.
That would break basic design rules as well as Database Normalisation rules, and prevent you from performing ordinary Relational operations on it. Never store more than one data value in a single column.
... or drop a row in the Property table
Deletion is something different again. If it is a "database" then it has Integrity. Therfore you cannot delete a parent row if it has child rows in some other table (and you can delete it if it does not have children). This is usually implemented as a "soft delete", an Indicator such as IsObsolete is added. This is referenced in the various SELECTS to exclude the row from being used (to add new children) but remains available as the parent for existing children.
If you want to retain property relations, even if the property doesn't exist. Make it so that Properties aren't necessarily deleted, but add a flag that denotes if the property is currently active. If a property's name is changed, create a new property with the new name and set the old property to inactive.
If you do this, you'll have to create some way of garbage collecting the inactive properties.
I'd never make a single column into a field that imitates a one-to-multi relationship with a comma-denoted list. Otherwise, you defeat the purpose of relational database.
Seems like you're using Test as both a template for a particular instance of a test, as well as the test itself. Maybe every time a user performs a test according to the specification in Test, create a row in, say, TestRun? This would preserve the particular Propertys, and if the entries in Property change later, then subsequent TestRuns would reflect the new changes.