Is it better to create a new table for storing user details or to expand the existing user table with additional columns?

It is generally better to expand the existing user table with additional columns rather than creating a new table for storing user details. This approach helps to keep related data together, simplifies queries that involve multiple user attributes, and reduces the complexity of managing multiple tables. 

// Example of expanding the existing user table with additional columns
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "myDB";

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

// Alter the existing user table to add additional columns
$sql = "ALTER TABLE users ADD COLUMN email VARCHAR(255), ADD COLUMN phone VARCHAR(20)";
if ($conn->query($sql) === TRUE) {
    echo "Table altered successfully";
} else {
    echo "Error altering table: " . $conn->error;
}

$conn->close();

Keywords

PHP database design table structure normalization data storage

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