When is it appropriate to create a new table in the WordPress database?

As the article mentions, using wp_options is not a good idea when you have thousands of terms, mainly because there’s:

  • a lot of serialization involved OR
  • long option names (the limit is 64 characters)

In this particular case, yes, it’s appropriate to create some custom tables.

To save time, you can use this plugin (update more recently than Simple Term Meta):

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/taxonomy-metadata/

Having said that, it looks to me like a custom post type would be better suited for this.

Take a look at my Posts 2 Posts plugin for relating highschools to whatever you were planning on relating them to.

Related Posts:

  1. MySQL Database User: Which Privileges are needed?
  2. Database synchronization between dev/staging and production
  3. How can I make updates to a site, on a development copy, but then move updates back without overriding live site’s evolving database?
  4. Safest way to bulk delete post revisions
  5. How can I make a WordPress database portable and url independent?
  6. WordPress Unit Testing – Cannot Create Tables
  7. Insert data in database using form
  8. Why does $wpdb return strings for mysql integer values?
  9. Dealing with Many Meta Values, 30+
  10. Has parent field in the table wp_term_taxonomy has term_id or term_taxonomy_id
  11. Is it possible to switch the data layer within WordPress?
  12. store simple data in get_option()
  13. How to delete outdated, wrongly sized images in _wp_attachment_metadata?
  14. Have multiple local wordpress installs share a wp-content folder and database
  15. BuddyPress: What’s the use of wp_bp_xprofile_data table and how does it get updated? [closed]
  16. How to implement content from external database into WordPress text page? [closed]
  17. Cloning and syncing a WordPress website
  18. What actions affect files, DB, or both?
  19. Add search Value to wp_list_table pagination
  20. stdObject stored in database. How does one convert it to usable format?
  21. Database with mixed collation (utf8mb4 & utf8_general_ci)
  22. How to fix unchanged URLs in Database after running serialized search and replace script?
  23. Merging WordPress posts from different databases
  24. Should non-WordPress data get its own DB?
  25. Who is responsible for data sanitization in WordPress development?
  26. Search and replace special characters (å,ä,ö) for image attachments only in database
  27. Adding a Table to the wordpress database
  28. Moving to another host; which tables to move in a database
  29. WordPress mysql table double prefixes
  30. Change WordPress prefix for only one table?
  31. input data and output table [closed]
  32. Retrieve data from the database to table such as comments in the admin control panel
  33. Localhost to Staging to Development Dynamic WP-CONFIG
  34. Setup 3 Sites To Connect To 1 Database and Share Data
  35. Uknown meta entries in wp_postmeta
  36. Change options table prefix only
  37. Query multiple tables at once?
  38. creating new field on mysql
  39. Why user_pass column in wp_users table is varchar(64)
  40. Why does changing Database Table Prefixes result in loss of content?
  41. Can local WordPress installs share /wp-content/ folder and database?
  42. Can I customised default WP table
  43. Should I use an additional column in the DB?
  44. SymmetricDS in dev + prod workflow?
  45. Will adding & modifying default WordPress table index break future WordPress update
  46. What is wrong here? Issue with post_id and meta_value
  47. Custom Database Table and foreach
  48. What is my error trying to create a new table in the database?
  49. How to edit custom table data in frontend
  50. A WP dev site that displays content from a live site’s database but cannot write to wp_posts?
  51. How to map data on CSV to web pages?
  52. WPCLI search and replace in a particlar site dir effect another site-dir
  53. Merging development site with live site
  54. One WP Database outside localhost and two connections
  55. Get id from database
  56. Display single post inside accordion based on form submission results
  57. Database custom table issues – incorrect result displayed
  58. Share WordPress Database
  59. MySQL Database User: Which Privileges are needed?
  60. Create hundreds of users with just ID in phpMyAdmin
  61. Have WordPress Use a Different Database for users
  62. Database table prefix different between wp-config.php and in database
  63. Count views without get_post_meta
  64. What is “Advanced” SQL?
  65. Two WordPress sites sharing the same content
  66. what is the wp_5_posts table in the database?
  67. Migrating data between local and development server
  68. WordPress Database Charset/Collate
  69. What is the database table for pages?
  70. Using Dynamic Data Pulled from a MySQL Table in a WordPress Page
  71. Hook to be used when creating a database table
  72. Delete all post meta except featured image
  73. Where is custom template file chosen for a post stored in the DB?
  74. Safe way to find last inserted id in a table?
  75. What’s the proper way to use a custom table? [closed]
  76. I don’t see site_url and home_url fields in wp_options table (phpMyAdmin)?
  77. Multiple postmeta with same name for one post in wp_postmeta table
  78. A field with dashes in the slug [closed]
  79. Handling large N data in WordPress
  80. How to replicate a user plugin made table value, to this user’s custom meta table value?
  81. Trouble Migrating all data blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
  82. Importing 10 Years of Media into the WP Database
  83. connecting to DB from custom php file
  84. Make changes of wp-db.php file persistent against updates
  85. Change the default data installed when setting up WordPress
  86. Clear Terms from Taxonomy for Specific Post IDs?
  87. How to split the WordPress database?
  88. $wpdb->get_var – What value is returned when zero records are found?
  89. more tables created when create a new site
  90. Only allow user to access a link once a year, based on their joining date
  91. Error establishing a database connection in wordpress site , website not opening
  92. Migrating meta_key and meta_value from old theme to new one
  93. How to rerieve comments and their replies from DB
  94. database error WordPress move from one hosting to other
  95. Select data from foreach loop and send it to wordpress database
  96. Error establishing database connection error during first WordPress run
  97. Same DB for live and dev versions
  98. not saving post in wp_post wordpress database table
  99. Many images in wp-content/uploads folder that are not in Media Library
  100. Understanding Redundant postmeta Tables in WordPress Database

Leave a Comment