[Pulp-dev] 'id' versus 'pulp_id' on Content

[Brian Bouterse]

Silly question, but could we just call our 'id' 'pk' instead? Since that is
a fully reserved value in Django for the primary key it seems clearest to
just use that? What about that?

On Tue, Jun 12, 2018 at 3:44 PM, Jeff Ortel <jortel at redhat.com> wrote:

> On 06/08/2018 02:57 PM, Brian Bouterse wrote:
>
>>
>> @jortel: We're blocked on your -1 vote expressed for 3704. We have
>> practical plugin writer issues with the current state. Can you elaborate on
>> why we shouldn't go forward with https://pulp.plan.io/issues/3704
>>
>
> The 'ID' column is reserved for the primary key and is inappropriate for
> natural keys.  This is well establish convention and best practice.


I don't understand this reasoning. Earlier in the thread we discussed how
the sources recommending these conventions also mention that if we have a
practical reason or problem with that convention to do something
differently. We received complaints on this name about collisions so I
don't follow how we should still follow the convention.


> Plugin writers specify natural keys.  Also, by introducing '_' prefix (or
> any prefix) means a table could have both 'ID' and '_ID' columns which is
> especially confusing since the 'ID' column would not be the primary key.
>

We have two concepts here that are similar, so I think that problem is
mostly unrelated to this decision. For example, if we leave the names as-is
we have this problem only now it's named id and errata_id and in addition
we'll have the problems listed below.


> How does naming the natural key for an rpm as 'rpm_id' cause a significant
> problem for plugin writers?
>

It's a good question because it's the whole motivation for this change.
It's not an rpm, it's an erratum which doesn't have nevra like a package.
It's also the problem from another content type I heard about at Config
Management Camp.

It causes problems in two ways:

* plugin users (not writers) who are familiar with 'id' as part of the
erratum data type would then have to also understand this field name
renaming that Pulp arbitrarily introduces. This could get confusing when
the user submit a filter with id='ID-2115858' and they find nothing because
'id' is matching on the primary key not on the 'id' attribute of the errata
like they expect. Those users would also be Pulp users so they'll
understand that _id means the pk.

* plugins specifically may wrap other tools and now they have to maintain
mappings as well. This is specifically the case with errata which the data
model is design to be name-for-name identical to the createrepo_c interface


> @bmbouters: just curious, where does the rpm 'id' come from and how is it
> used differently than the NEVREA composite natural key.
>
>
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