Question

I’m trying to figure out the best practices for storing user data on a php/mysql site.
let’s say the website will host a service of saving people’s input for items they have in their house.
I have set up tables that includes: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc.
Sally adds her 6 kitchen items.
John adds his 3 kitchen items.
etc.

I’m just wondering what may be the common practice on storing other user information in the mysql database. I’ve taken a class on databases, so i’m thinking relationally linking by foreign key, john with his items in the lists, and sally too..

does that sound about right? or is there a better way? I can see the list getting really large quite quickly.

would it be possible to set up a different table to each user? is that possible? or would it be silly?

Answer 1

I would not set up a table for each user.

Definitely go relational. I am not sure I follow you completely around “john with his items..” and so on. So I interpret this as

user table
room table
item table
relational user->item (id, user_id, item_id, room_id) OR:
relational item->room

So you can pull a user, list the rooms they have related to them, then list the items in that room. Additionally, like this you do not need a new item entry for common things like tables, stoves, spatulas, etc.

Your list could get large, but if you scale properly and plan a back end based update migration when you absolutely need to (like millions of users) then you should be fine. Consider how many relations sites like facebook and ebay have to maintain. Large relations are normal for databases so I wouldn’t let a couple million rows scare you.