Question

If each First/Last name pair is mapped to a unique user ID, how can I get the correct user ID when a user has the same First and Last names.

For example:

User ID     First Name      Last Name
123         Bob             Moore
321         Bob             Moore

When Bob Moore tries to login, how can my system determine which Bob Moore it is?

Thanks.

Ps. I know this is probably a frequent question, but I couldn’t find a short and informative answer.

Answer 1

In your code you need to always use the User ID field. In other database structures/tables, if you want to join, you have to use User ID.

Never try to do the lookup based on first name/last name.

EDIT:
For logging in, you need things that are unique to distinguish between users. This is usually a login name, and most sites these days use email address.