Oracle-L: RE: Table Naming Conventions

From: Cary Millsap <cary.millsap_at_hotsos.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 13:09:36 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.004A68C8.20020730130936@fatcity.com>

Here's a start. Not a checklist by any means, just kind of a micro pet peeves list.

Decide today whether table names will be singular or plural. Do you want a THING (singular) table? Or a THINGS (plural) table?
Don't use case-sensitive names. E.g., use THING (without quotes) in your CREATE (DDL) statement, which can be spelled "THING", "thing", "Thing", or even "tHiNG" in your developers' SQL. But don't make developers type stuff like this...

select "Name" from "Thing" where "Id" = y /* won't work without "" */

Don't embed the object type in the object's name. I used to see this all the time with tablespaces called XYZ_TS, indexes called IND_THING, and so on.
Decide today whether you want to abbreviate or not. If you do, then construct a formal, standard, consistent list of accepted abbreviations. Don't name one table CUSTOMER_THING and another CUST_HISTORY.

Cary Millsap
Hotsos Enterprises, Ltd.
http://www.hotsos.com

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-----Original Message-----
Chambers
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 3:37 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

All...

Will some of you please provide some insight on your table naming conventions? I'm in the very early planning stages of what will likely be a large and complex schema (IT asset inventory). I have a chance to start it correctly. TIA

Gary Chambers

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Author: Cary Millsap
  INET: cary.millsap_at_hotsos.com

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Received on Tue Jul 30 2002 - 16:09:36 CDT