Status fields: ALTER TYPE vs. INSERT INTO?

Question

I have a simple table with a status column:

create type status as enum (
  'approved',
  'pending_approval',
  'rejected'
);

create table document (
  id          serial primary key,
  uuid        uuid unique not null default uuid_generate_v4(),
  title       text not null,
  content     text,
  status      status not null,
  created_at  timestamptz not null default now(),
  updated_at  timestamptz not null default now(),
  deleted_at  timestamptz
);

This is the beginning of a small workflow-esque application I'm doing. Statuses, however, can be defined by the users of the application. What are the cons of using ALTER TYPE instead of creating a new table and using JOIN? I really don't want to add a JOIN to my queries just because of a status field.

Answer 1

What are the cons of using ALTER TYPE instead of creating a new table and using JOIN? I really don't want to add a JOIN to my queries just because of a status field.

This is your typical pro/con enum vs normalization question.

ENUM type

• Great if the range is fixed or only requires modification by the DBA.

• Get a really nice query syntax which optimized well (bottom assumes status is an ENUM)

  SELECT * FROM foo WHERE status = 'INVALID';
  

• Sorts well and permits easy range within the type. All enums are sorted and have ordinality

• Store in an 4 byte-size
• Can eliminate a JOIN
• PostgreSQL has ENUM types, not macros (like MySQL). This means you don't take a hit in maintenance. If you have five tables using your ENUM type you can still manage just that one type and not five tables.

Normalized / JOIN method

• Always preferred if the user needs to be able to modify the domain/data
• Always preferred if the domain/data needs to shrink (remove values)
• Will provide easier modification with an ORM
• More traditional
• Can be smaller than ENUM (for instance smallint is two bytes, enum is always four bytes).