Is prefixing table names with "tab" a good idea

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Is prefixing table names with "tab" a good idea

Clive Chinery

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July 15, 2010 at 6:07 am

#148077

Please indicate your opinion on the desirability on prefixing tables with "tab"

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ColdCoffee SSC-Dedicated Points: 39971 More actions · Answer 1

This will be useful only in VSTF or code-maintenance... As SQL Server cleverly distinguishes between objects, i dont think naming it with "tab" is mandatory..

WayneS SSC Guru Points: 95409 More actions · Answer 2

I find this of dubious value. However, since you can also select from views and some functions, it might be of some use to do this. Personally, I assume that statements are against a table, and then add a prefix or suffix to the views/functions to indicate otherwise.

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Grant Fritchey SSC Guru Points: 398679 More actions · Answer 3

Does it hurt anything? Not really.

But what a total waste of space and time. Maintenance and long term readability is reduced, not enhanced. It's a throwback to the old days of Hungarian notation, which shouldn't even be used in code, let alone inside of database structures. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do this.

Other than that, I'm fine with it.

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spaghettidba SSC Guru Points: 105732 More actions · Answer 4

It's something I personally hate. If you have the choice, avoide it.

-- Gianluca Sartori

Jim McLeod SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4057 More actions · Answer 5

A useful tuning technique may involve converting views to functions, or tables to views, etc.

For example, you might create a second table, and then use a view over this table and the original one to give you identical functionality as before, without changing massive amounts of code. If you then see tblAAAA everywhere, you might be thinking you're looking at a table, when in reality it's a view. It might be an OK convention when it's correct, but when it's misleading, it's horribly confusing.

PaulB-TheOneAndOnly SSC Guru Points: 66772 More actions · Answer 6

It all depends on you naming convention.

In some cases the author of the naming convention may be tired of having to explain why tables are the only objects that lack a prefix therefore just to stop getting complains and keep naming convention consistent the "tab" or "tbl" prefix are born.

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Pablo (Paul) Berzukov

Author of Understanding Database Administration available at Amazon and other bookstores.

Disclaimer: Advice is provided to the best of my knowledge but no implicit or explicit warranties are provided. Since the advisor explicitly encourages testing any and all suggestions on a test non-production environment advisor should not held liable or responsible for any actions taken based on the given advice.