The content_models table is a normalization table for content model names. They are referenced from the content table.

In PHP code, normalization is managed via NameTableStore .

It was introduced in MediaWiki 1.31 as part of the Multi-Content Revisions project; see Multi-Content Revisions/Content Meta-Data for details. During migration from older versions, the table is populated by populateContentTables.php (run automatically by the upgrade script).

Fields

Schema summary

DESCRIBE content_models;

+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| model_id   | int(11)       | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| model_name | varbinary(64) | NO   | UNI | NULL    |                |
+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

DESCRIBE content_models;

+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field      | Type          | Null | Key | Default | Extra          |
+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| model_id   | smallint(6)   | NO   | PRI | NULL    | auto_increment |
| model_name | varbinary(64) | NO   | UNI | NULL    |                |
+------------+---------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

Indexes

SHOW INDEX IN content_models;

+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| Table          | Non_unique | Key_name   | Seq_in_index | Column_name | Collation | Cardinality | Sub_part | Packed | Null | Index_type | Comment | Index_comment |
+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+
| content_models |          0 | PRIMARY    |            1 | model_id    | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
| content_models |          0 | model_name |            1 | model_name  | A         |           0 |     NULL | NULL   |      | BTREE      |         |               |
+----------------+------------+------------+--------------+-------------+-----------+-------------+----------+--------+------+------------+---------+---------------+