this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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Making a database identifier unique per user? (self.learn_programming)
submitted 3 months ago by Cyno to c/learn_programming
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Let's say I am making an app that has table Category and table User. Each user has their own set of categories they created for themselves. Category has its own Id identity that is auto-incremented in an sqlite db.

Now I was thinking, since this is the ID that users will be seeing in their url when editing a category for example, shouldn't it be an ID specific only to them? If the user makes 5 categories they should see IDs from 1 to 5, not start with 14223 or whichever was the next internal ID in the database. After all when querying the data I will only be showing them their own categories so I will always be filtering on UserId anyway.

So let's say I add a new column called "UserSpecificCategoryId" or something like that - how do I make sure it is autogenerated in a safe way and stays unique per user? Do I have to do it manually in the code (which sounds annoying), use some sort of db trigger (we hate triggers, right?) or is this something I shouldn't even be bothering with in the first place?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Your description of the problem makes sense. If you think improving the user experience in this way is worthwhile, then go for it. Just remember, most users don't pay attention to the address bar.

For implementation, I suggest creating a new table, something like 'tb_user_category_index,' with userId as a foreign key and an integer that increments each time it's used. Automating this process in the database would be ideal: set it up once and let it run on its own, keeping things simple.

However, don't confuse this cosmetic index with a primary key. The primary key should only serve as a unique identifier for a record and hold no other information.

[โ€“] Cyno 1 points 3 months ago

By automating it you mean something a store procedure that returns the ID and increments the count at the same time or is there a more sophisticated way of doing it?