[wp-hackers] users vs. usermeta

[David House]

On 14/12/05, John Joseph Bachir <jjb at ibiblio.org> wrote:
> What is the philosophy behind which data types are hardcoded into the
> `users` table, and which go into the `usermeta` table? It seems like
> everything that is always used in WordPress (at least `wp_user_level` and
> `wp_capabilities`, and perhaps also the other options which are initially
> blank, such as the various IM usernames) can/should go into the users
> table, and the usermeta table can be available for plugins.

The users table is intended as a bare minimum amount of data for a
user: ID, password, login etc. Everything else goes in usermeta,
because that's a more flexible way of storing the data. We can
add/remove new fields like new types of IM username without requiring
a DB update.

--
-David House, dmhouse at gmail.com, http://xmouse.ithium.net