Database Reference
In-Depth Information
“Phone\Fax,” identify each characteristic that the name implies, and create a new
field for the characteristic. Then test the new field name against these guidelines to
ensure that the name is sound.
•
Use the singular form of the name.
A field with a plural name, such as “Skills,”
implies that it may contain two or more values for a given record, which is not a
good idea. (You'll learn more about this later in the chapter.) A field name is sin-
gular because it represents a
single
characteristic of the subject of the table to
which it belongs. A table name, on the other hand, is plural because it represents a
collection
of similar objects or events. You can distinguish table names from field
names quite easily when you use this naming convention.
Note
The specific guideline for using a table name as a prefix for a field name will
havethesameissuethatIbroughtupearlierfortablenames:Theseparticularfield
names are likely to change once you (or the database developer in charge of im-
plementing thedatabase) beginimplementing thedatabase intoaspecific RDBMS
application. The names will need to conform to the naming convention that deve-
lopers commonly use for the RDBMS.
With these guidelines in mind, review each table and determine whether you can make im-
provements to any of the field names. When you're finished, you're ready to identify and
resolve any problems with the fields.
Figure 7.12
shows revisions to the field names of the
table structures in
Figure 7.11
.
