Forum OpenACS Development: Acs_object_types table

Posted by Kevin Crosbie on 08/19/02 03:20 PM

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone knew the reason why the table_name
column on acs_object_types is unique. Is it not possible to have
two objects which use the same table to store their data. For
instance:

I have two types of users: Users who can login and users who can't
and I just want to store some details for them.

That is: real_users and pseudo_users

Real_users are a sub-type of users and pseudo_users a sub-type of
persons.

They both store my user specific information such as number of
children etc. in the same table.

I suppose I could just have them both created as the same object
type... bit restrictive I think though.

Any ideas?

2: Response to Acs_object_types table_name (response to 1)

Posted by Don Baccus on 08/19/02 03:44 PM

Well ... also you *must* give a table. Another way to do what you want would be to derive real_users and pseudo_users from users and define no new table for either type, adding columns to your shared user table instead. I find this latter inability to define a type without additional storage to be more annoying but you're not the first to make the suggestion you're making, either.

I think both of these possible changes are on the table for OpenACS 4.7, but not 4.6.

3: Response to Acs_object_types table_name (response to 1)

Posted by Kevin Crosbie on 08/19/02 04:04 PM

I've taken your suggestion Don, Thanks. That should work fine for me. Basically when I create a psuedo_user, I create a person, of type person and then add in the user specific data. Then when I create a real_user, I create a user and add a specific type of user.

It is a little restrictive in the overall object model design though. I'm sure there is a good reason to have that set to unique/not-null.

Anyway,

Thanks again,

Kevin

Forum OpenACS Development: Acs_object_types table_name