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An interesting consequence of contentless tables is that you end up with a database that does not have data. Should we still call it a database? :)
by charles_parnot 11y ago
An interesting consequence of contentless tables is that you end up with a database that does not have data. Should we still call it a database? :)
- j_s 11y agoAn interesting point; however (as I'm sure you're aware) the specific table may be empty, but the database definitely is not. Per the article, it is true that "the ‘content’ part of a contentless table is simply empty", but "Behind the scenes, SQLite creates various data structures for the index".
- charles_parnot 11y agoRight, it was tongue in cheek. There is of course some data in there :-) I suppose what I meant is that it is lossy: you cannot get back what you "INSERT". That violates a pretty basic assumption about what a database is supposed to do ;-)
- crishoj 11y agoFor the iOS version of the Thai-English Dictionary from thai-language.com (https://appsto.re/us/QS7jQ.i https://appsto.re/us/QS7jQ.i), I use a content-less FTS4 index and indeed do not store the actual dictionary content in SQLite at all. In this application, I'd be happy to settle with referring to it as merely an index, and not a database.
- charles_parnot 11y agoExactly