On 06/11/2009 11:33 AM, Eric Schwarzenbach wrote:
> My rule of thumb for when to use to not use cascading deletes is this:
>
> If the what the record represents can essentially be thought of a "part
> of" what the record that it references represents, I use cascading
> deletes. If what the record represents has an independent existence,
> that it, it does not necessarily have the same life cycle, I prohibit
> cascading. (This is more or less the distinction between composition and
> aggregation in UML terms, if I remember correctly.)
>
> This amounts to the same advice others have already given, but in other
> terms, and may be helpful if you conceive of your data this way.
>
> Eric
"part of" is exactly the term that I was thinking of as well.