Chapter 18. Reference database design

Table of Contents
The table t_meta
The table t_refdb
The table t_author
The table t_keyword
The table t_periodical
The table t_user
The table t_xauthor
The table t_xkeyword
The table t_xuser

This section gives an overview over the design of the reference database with MySQL as the database server. The same design is used with the other database engines, although the details may differ somewhat. This will be mentioned where appropriate.

The requirements of the database necessitate some tables which hold the data proper and some tables which cross-reference these tables.

The table t_meta

The t_meta table contains the following meta-information about the database:

meta_app

This string contains the name of the application that created the database.

meta_version

This string contains the version number of the application that created the database.

meta_type

This string describes the type of the database. Currently only the type "risx" is supported.

meta_create_date

This timestamp is set by refdbd when the database is created.

meta_modify_date

This timestamp is updated by refdbd whenever the database is changed.