[buddypress-trac] [BuddyPress] #4796: Use taxonomies instead of/in addition to BP Xprofile tables

[buddypress-trac]

#4796: Use taxonomies instead of/in addition to BP Xprofile tables
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 Reporter:  boonebgorges  |      Owner:  boonebgorges
     Type:  enhancement   |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal        |  Milestone:  Future Release
Component:  XProfile      |    Version:
 Severity:  normal        |   Keywords:
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 BP's xprofile tables store profile field data (and metadata about fields)
 in what are essentially key-value pairs. This works well when querying by
 user id, which is what generally happens on the user profile pages and
 elsewhere in BuddyPress. However, the unindexed `value` column means that
 it's basically impossible to do more complex queries - stuff like "how
 many users live in Wisconsin or New York, and also are less than 100 years
 old?". It's technically possible to make these kinds of things work - see
 http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-better-directories/ - but the
 `JOINs` required are very ugly and very unscalable.

 Profile data is many-to-many in structure. And WordPress already has a
 system for many-to-many metadata: custom taxonomies. I'd like to propose
 that xprofile field data be stored in a taxonomy instead of a key-value
 table.

 Benefits:
 - Exponentially faster complex queries
 - We can leverage the core taxonomy API, including caching
 - We can remove a bunch of stuff from BP

 Concerns:
 - Backward compatibility with existing plugins/themes
 - Pain in the butt to port
 - Some field types do not lend themselves well to taxonomies. In
 particular, it would be odd to store `<textarea>` data (multi-line text
 box) in a taxonomy

 I'd want for the xprofile component (at least the query class) to have
 pretty complete test coverage before attempting anything like this.

 Obviously a long-term project and perhaps a pipe dream, but IMO it's one
 of the most promising areas in BP for getting rid of a custom table or
 two, while also giving us a ton of cool new features.

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Ticket URL: <https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4796>
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