Re: inheritance vs 1-1 relationship

On Sat, 2003-05-17 at 21:36, culley harrelson wrote:
> Are there any drawbacks to
> inheritance other than a decrease in portability?

Inheritance is very nifty and, more importantly, better represents the
data of some problems. I love it.

James Gregory and I have just had a short thread re: foreign keys into
inherited tables which you may wish to read (see archive). It's not a
problem per se, but rather a minor shortcoming (IMO).

Some things to note with inheritance:
- indices are not created on subtable columns automatically
- the super- & subtables are distinct tables
- select really just does a union select on subtables
- alter and drop cascade to subtables

I haven't had any problems with inheritance and mostly think it's
wonderful.

-Reece

--
Reece Hart, Ph.D. rkh(at)gene(dot)com, http://www.gene.com/
Genentech, Inc. 650/225-6133 (voice), -5389 (fax)
Bioinformatics and Protein Engineering
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