Default row in table - best practice sqlite

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Just after opinions here. I have an SQLite table that holds e-mail account details, one row of which will be the default account. Which would be the better design to mark the default row?

a) Have a separate table (max 1 row) with one field, which is the rowid of the default row in the Accounts table
or
b) Have an 'IsDefault' column (probably indexed) in the Accounts table, with a trigger so that if it is set, it clears the flag in the existing default row.

Does is also depend on the expected size of the Accounts table (will be small)?

Cheers,

Mick

What I have tried:

Currently using the separate table method - just wondering if this is best practice or not?

Posted 11-Mar-16 2:27am

Midi_Mick

Updated 11-Mar-16 2:53am

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Sascha Lefèvre · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-11T02:53:00

In my opinion the separate table is the "more beautiful" solution. While triggers would allow you to ensure that there's only ever one record marked as default, with the separate table solution it can't happen in the first place and there's no need to update the former default record when declaring another one as the new default. I'm using it myself: I have a table "DefaultValue" which holds one record with foreign keys to several other tables for which defaults have to be defined.

PS: Also the query for the default record doesn't require a table scan (or index) that way which might matter if you need to define a default record on a table that holds a few more records than in your current case.