[AccessD] RE: Using Dates

Colby, John JColby at dispec.com
Mon Feb 2 11:18:56 CST 2004


lol.  All I needed to know is that you join any date (use the date as the PK
in the date table).

I notice that the proponent whazizname doesn't recommend this though, rather
using a "meaningless" pk (autonumber?).  When it comes back to this it
becomes less obvious how to use it.  

I can easily build a date() as a default value for a field for example.
However having to lookup that date and get the PK of the record matching
that date... a little less obvious.

I will no doubt look at this though.  I can see just thinking about it that
it isn't the end all / be all, even speed wise.  For queries that only
return 1 or a handful of records, using direct functions to build some piece
of the date would be MUCH faster than doing a join on this table, pulling
the index for 10,000 date records etc.  And there is always the issue of
joining a date directly when it has a time component - now() instead of
date().

Interesting none the less.

John W. Colby
The database guy


-----Original Message-----
From: Charlotte Foust [mailto:cfoust at infostatsystems.com]
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 11:57 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] RE: Using Dates


Ah, a convert! <VBG>

Charlottet Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: Colby, John [mailto:JColby at dispec.com] 
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 11:06 AM
To: 'Robert L. Stewart'; accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Cc: Colby, John
Subject: [AccessD] RE: Using Dates


I think I finally "got it".  This is joined to any date to pull out the
various pieces needed?  Then you build a function to populate this thing
for the dates that your app needs?  

I think I might just appreciate this one!  ;-)

John W. Colby
The database guy


-----Original Message-----
From: Robert L. Stewart [mailto:rl_stewart at highstream.net]
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 1:58 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Cc: JColby at dispec.com
Subject: Re: Using Dates


Actually, you have a "standard" date dimension table that everyone uses
and 
the overhead is minimal.

At 12:00 PM 1/30/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:58:44 -0500
>From: "Colby, John" <JColby at dispec.com>
>Subject: RE: [AccessD] Using Dates
>To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'"
>         <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID: <05C61C52D7CAD211A7830008C7DF6F1079BD12 at DISABILITYINS01>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>I have to assume though that you only create these as required for 
>reporting?  The overhead would be enormous otherwise.
>
>John W. Colby


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