[development] Form field maxlengths vs. database field sizes

[Pat Collins]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006 11:23:07 -0800, Adrian Rossouw <adrian at bryght.com> wrote :

> 
> On 08 Feb 2006, at 8:28 PM, Chris Johnson wrote:
> > It does not presently, but Drupal could know the field sizes in the  
> > database tables.  However, is that worth doing?  (I'm presently  
> > developing a database abstraction layer for my employer where the  
> > db layer figures out the metadata, like field sizes, on the fly so  
> > that the applications need not know anything at all about it.)
> 
> I want to do this for 4.8.
> 
> it simplifies the install files (which are in core now), and allows  
> us to possibly automate some of the _update_x function creation.
> 
> essentially
> db_create_table('name', array('field' => 'type', 'field' => 'type');
> etc.
> 
> keeping track of all the columns in the database is important for  
> stuff like views and relationships too.
> 

It would also make supporting other database engines easier.  Imagine
optimized sql for each db.  Wouldn't that be great.

Pat