enum and Type Convention

enums and types work closely in the chuck-stack. The enum is a developer tool used in code. A type record is an end-user tool used in transactions. Type tables contain enums thus creating the connection between the concepts.

enum Convention

The chuck-stack makes heavy use of enums to minimize the amount of code and reduce the code's dependencies on transaction data.

No _uu record should ever be referred to in code. Instead, create a record with a enum column representing how the code should behave and switch/case/if-else based on the value of the enum.

Type Convention

The purpose of this section is to describe a way to ensure no transactional table directly contains an enum.

The proper convention to reference an enum is to create a facade table with a _type suffix that contains the enum. Transactional tables then reference the _type_uu record. The purpose of this convention is to allow users to create multiple type records without requiring any changes to code.

An example of this convention includes the stk_doc_type table where users can create as many document types as is needed, and the code needs only worry about the type's enum value.

An enum is typically named the same as the type table with _enum suffix. For example, the stk_doc_type table has an enum column named stk_doc_type_enum.