Summary

The assets and asset_dependencies tables (and their views asset_view / asset_dependencies_view) have vague names that don't convey what they contain or when they are populated. They are easily confused with:

• the asset_bundles table (a different thing - the Unity Archive; see Generalize use of AssetBundle to Archive in analyze schema and elsewhere #68 for its rename),
• serialized_files,
• "source assets" in the project (the term "asset" is heavily overloaded across the docs).

More importantly, the names give no hint that this data is AssetBundle/PreloadData-specific and mostly empty for Player and ContentDirectory builds. From recent investigation:

• assets is populated only from the AssetBundle Unity object's m_Container (empty for Player/ContentDirectory builds).
• asset_dependencies is populated from three sources: the AssetBundle object's m_PreloadTable, the synthetic Scene object's contents, and the PreloadData object's m_Assets (the last of which also appears in Player builds).

Proposed names (to discuss)

Caveat on asset_dependencies: the request was to tie its name more clearly to the PreloadData object that populates it. That fits its largest source, but note the table also receives AssetBundle m_PreloadTable rows and scene-content rows, so a strictly preload_-only name is slightly narrower than the current behavior. Worth deciding the intended scope as part of the rename (and it interacts with #81, which may change how/whether the Player-build and scene rows are written).

Relationship to other issues

• Generalize use of AssetBundle to Archive in analyze schema and elsewhere #68 - rename asset_bundles. These renames should share a naming convention and probably land together.
• analyze: scene/preload dependencies broken outside BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundles (dangling assets rows; object -1 rows) #81 - the scene/preload population bugs. Since analyze: scene/preload dependencies broken outside BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundles (dangling assets rows; object -1 rows) #81 may change what actually gets written into asset_dependencies (e.g. removing the object = -1 rows, fixing scene handling), it may be cleaner to fix analyze: scene/preload dependencies broken outside BuildPipeline.BuildAssetBundles (dangling assets rows; object -1 rows) #81 first or do both together to avoid churning the schema twice.

This is a breaking schema change: bump PRAGMA user_version in Init.sql and update the find-refs schema-version check accordingly.

Places that reference these names in the source

Schema / writers:

• Analyzer/Resources/AssetBundle.sql - CREATE TABLE assets, CREATE TABLE asset_dependencies, CREATE VIEW asset_view, CREATE VIEW asset_dependencies_view.
• Analyzer/Resources/Init.sql - view_material_shader_refs and view_material_texture_refs both LEFT JOIN assets a; also the PRAGMA user_version bump.
• Analyzer/SQLite/Handlers/AssetBundleHandler.cs - INSERT INTO assets, INSERT INTO asset_dependencies, and the index names asset_dependencies_object / asset_dependencies_dependency.
• Analyzer/SQLite/Handlers/PreloadDataHandler.cs - INSERT INTO asset_dependencies.
• Analyzer/SQLite/Commands/SerializedFile/AddAssetDependency.cs - TableName => "asset_dependencies", the table-definition comment, and consider renaming the class itself.
• Analyzer/Properties/Resources.Designer.cs - auto-generated from the .sql resources; regenerates on build, no manual edit, but will show the new names.

Consumers:

• ReferenceFinder/ReferenceFinderTool.cs - FROM assets a (line ~140) and FROM asset_view (line ~193).

Tests:

• UnityDataTool.Tests/UnityDataToolPlayerDataTests.cs - SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assets.
• UnityDataTool.Tests/UnityDataToolAssetBundleTests.cs - SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assets.
• UnityDataTool.Tests/ExpectedDataGenerator.cs - SELECT COUNT(*) FROM assets.

Documentation:

• Documentation/analyzer.md - the asset_view (AssetBundleProcessor) and asset_dependencies_view (AssetBundleProcessor) sections.
• Documentation/analyze-examples.md - references to the assets table (around the "source assets" discussion).

(Search the tree for \bassets\b, asset_dependencies, asset_view, asset_dependencies_view before declaring done; the token "assets" is also a substring of unrelated filenames like sharedassets0.assets, so filter those out.)