[development] Pathauto scaleability - path column in node / user table

[Neil Drumm]

Adrian Rossouw wrote:
> One of the things we discussed doing once 4.8 is open, around the  time 
> of vancouver, was
> that in order to maintain an alias for each and every node, using the  
> path table for that,
> was just not going to scale.
> 
> So, simply adding a 'path' column, which is in effect the preferred  
> alias for that object, and then using a
> node_link($node) function (or just l($node->path)), would allow us to  
> run modules like pathauto on
> very large production sites with thousands of nodes.

I actually scribbled something like this in my notebook a few nights ago.

Change the $path argument of l() to be $target which is either a path 
(string) or object with a link child. If the target is on object, then 
use $target->link without an alias lookup. This could be used for nodes, 
users, etc.

-- 
Neil Drumm
http://delocalizedham.com/