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From: itkin@mrspoc.Transact.COM (Steven M. List)
Newsgroups: comp.databases,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: How do you name table/structure elements?
Message-ID: <1990Jan18.000523.24558@mrspoc.Transact.COM>
Date: 18 Jan 90 00:05:23 GMT
References: <1990Jan16.170217.16718@aqdata.uucp>
Reply-To: itkin@guinan.Transact.COM
Organization: Transact Software, Inc., Los Altos, CA
Lines: 20

sullivan@aqdata.uucp (Michael T. Sullivan) writes:
Asking about naming conventions for columns within tables in a database.

I prefer to use a descriptive name that is deliberately the same across
all tables in which the field appears.  That is, if I have a customer
ID that appears in several tables, I will call it customer_id in all
those tables.  On the other hand, I would NOT call it "ID", since that
does not tell me what it is.

In Michael's example, he had a field called "name."  I would never use
a simple field name like that, because it doesn't tell me what it is.
On the other hand, customer_name is quite descriptive and lets me know
what the field is (and what the connection is) no matter which table
it is in.
-- 
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 :                Steven List @ Transact Software, Inc. :^>~                  :
 :           Chairman, Unify User Group of Northern California                :
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