Naming Indexes

[SaranacLake]

Do you name your Indexes in MySQL?

If so, what naming convention do you use?

[Barand]

I name mine after Harry Potter characters.

However if I create an index without a name using MySQL Workbench it auto names it for me. If I index column yyy in table xxx it gives it the name "idx_xxx_yyy"

[SaranacLake]

2 minutes ago, Barand said:

I name mine after Harry Potter characters.

However if I create an index without a name using MySQL Workbench it auto names it for me. If I index column yyy in table xxx it gives it the name "idx_xxx_yyy"

So it doesn't sound like you find value in naming your indexes?  (I take the first comment to be sarcasm...)

 

[requinix]

23 minutes ago, Barand said:

I name mine after Harry Potter characters.

That's so Hufflepuff.

[Barand]

To me it sounds like I don't name them because they will be given reasonable names automatically

[SaranacLake]

6 minutes ago, Barand said:

To me it sounds like I don't name them because they will be given reasonable names automatically

Is there a need to know an indexes name so that you can refer to it, or is it a MySQL internal that no one really cares about?

[kicken]

5 hours ago, SaranacLake said:

Is there a need to know an indexes name so that you can refer to it

There are a few reasons you might want to know the name (index hints, changing the index, etc), but all are fairly rare so it's not really important that you name them explicitly.  If you need the name, you could always look it up later.

I tend to name my indexes and constraints just to be explicit.  I use the format IX_table_name_column_name to keep things simple.