Laravel and SQL good practices for types

Question

I have a table with "types" that looks like this :

Common, Rare, Mythic, New

and an "item" table that has a type as a foreign key. In fact Common are common to all of types except New. Instead of doing a 0..n relation I wanted to put what's common on all columns except "New"

Is it possible through Laravel Eloquent or is it just a bad practice to try like this?

Thanks you!

Answer 1

Following points should be considered about ENUM usage:

ENUMs work best when

• The type you are representing is local to the table only
• It must represent a type that is never changed
• It will never likely experience redefinition
• Its cardinality needs to be low
• Its portability must always be based on logical dumps of the table, never physical.

When not to use ENUM

• When ENUM type is not fixed
• When ENUM type has a long list of values
• When your application does not know the list of ENUM values
• ENUM type is not reusable
• Portability is a concern

I hope these points will help you.