Home/ Questions/Q 35155
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-10T14:11:29+00:00

As part of our current database work, we are looking at a dealing with

  • 0

As part of our current database work, we are looking at a dealing with the process of updating databases.

A point which has been brought up recurrently, is that of dealing with system vs. user values; in our project user and system vals are stored together. For example…

We have a list of templates.

1, <system template>  2, <system template>  3, <system template>

These are mapped in the app to an enum (1, 2, 3)

Then a user comes in and adds…

4, <user template>

…and…

5, <user template>

Then.. we issue an upgrade.. and insert as part of our upgrade scripts…

<new id> [6], <new system template>

THEN!!… we find a bug in the new system template and need to update it… The problem is how? We cannot update record using ID6 (as we may have inserted it as 9, or 999, so we have to identify the record using some other mechanism)

So, we’ve come to two possible solutions for this.

In the red corner (speed)….

We simply start user Ids at 5000 (or some other value) and test data at 10000 (or some other value). This would allow us to make modifications to system values and test them up to the lower limit of the next ID range.

Advantage…Quick and easy to implement,

Disadvantage… could run out of values if we don’t choose a big enough range!

In the blue corner (scalability)…

We store, system and user data separately, use GUIDs as Ids and merge the two lists using a view.

Advantage…Scalable..No limits w/regard to DB size.

Disadvantage.. More complicated to implement. (many to one updatable views etc.)

I plump squarely for the first option, but looking for some ammo to back me up!

Does anyone have any thoughts on these approaches, or even one(s) that we’ve missed?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. I have never had problems (performance or development – TDD & unit testing included) using GUIDs as the ID for my databases, and I’ve worked on some pretty big ones. Have a look here, here and here if you want to find out more about using GUIDs (and the potential GOTCHAS involved) as your primary keys – but I can’t recommend it highly enough since moving data around safely and DB synchronisation becomes as easy as brushing your teeth in the morning 🙂

    For your question above, I would either recommend a third column (if possible) that indicates whether or not the template is user or system based, or you can at the very least generate GUIDs for system templates as you insert them and keep a list of those on hand, so that if you need to update the template, you can just target that same GUID in your DEV, UAT and /or PRODUCTION databases without fear of overwriting other templates. The third column would come in handy though for selecting all system or user templates at will, without the need to seperate them into two tables (this is overkill IMHO).

    I hope that helps,

    Rob G

    • 0