Common Issues with Databases
Explore common problems with database data quality such as type mismatches, semantic errors, and broken cross-references. Understand how to maintain database integrity by enforcing constraints and running tests with SQLAlchemy to ensure reliable and trustworthy data in your applications.
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If we can’t trust our data, we can’t trust our program. Issues with data correctness can go unnoticed for a long time, popping up unexpectedly to pollute the user experience, raise doubt about the web application, or crash a server process. This is especially true as the data gets more complicated and as the points of contact with the data increase. The best practice for developing a new application is to enforce data integrity constraints from the beginning and re-run total data checks periodically. Three broad categories to watch for are:
- Type violations
- Invalid semantics
- Broken cross-references
Type violations
The data types on which databases are built prevent the coarsest kinds of type violations, such as storing a number where a string is expected. In general, it is important to ...