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POIs this an appropriate use of a MySQL enumeration data type?
 

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  1. POIs this an appropriate use of a MySQL enumeration data type?
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    <p>I have recently started doing freelance PHP + MySQL development in my free time, to supplement my income from a full-time job where I write C#/SQL Server code. One of the big database-related differences I've noticed is that MySQL has an enum datatype, whereas SQL Server does not.</p> <p>When I noticed the enum datatype, I immediately decided to flatten my data model in favor of having a big table that makes use of enumerations rather than many smaller tables for discrete entities and one big "bridge" sort of table.</p> <p>The website I'm currently working on is for a record label. I only have one table to store the releases for the label, the "releases" table. I have used enumerations everywhere I would normally use a foreign key to a separate table--Artist name, Label name, and several others. The user has the ability to edit these enumeration columns through the backend. The major advantage I see for enumerations over using a text field for this is that artist names will be reused, which should improve data integrity. I also see an advantage in having fewer tables in the database.</p> <p>Incidentally, I do still have one additional table and a bridge table--there is a "Tags" feature to add tags to a particular release, and since this is a many-to-many relationship, I feel a discrete tag table and a bridge table to join tags to releases is appropriate</p> <p>Having never encountered an ENUM datatype in a database before, I wonder if I am making wise use of this feature, or if there are problems I haven't foreseen that might come back to bite me as a result of this data architecture. Experienced MySQL'ers, what do you think?</p>
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    1. USmatt b
    1. USSuperNES
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    1. COcan you post some code so i can submit it on the http://thedailywtf.com ?
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      1. USJon Black
    2. COi'm afraid i wouldn't qualify for thedailywtf, as this is my first php/mysql web app and thedailywtf tries to be nice to beginners. i will admit that i would be honored to be on that site though!
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    3. CObut you're a seasoned C#/SQL server coder - WTF !
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