[AccessD] Re: Number vs text data type

List,

Simple rule...

If you are not going to do math with it, store it as text,
except when using it as a dumb primary key/foreign key.

All of the reason cited in the posts are correct.  But
if you need a list of numbers stored as text sorted
properly, just pad it with 0 or space on the left side.
Everything will be sorted correctly.

The reason the keys should stay numeric is the speed of
the search for a record.  It is a few milliseconds faster.

Robert

At 12:00 PM 10/13/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 08:47:57 -0700
>From: "Charlotte Foust" <cfoust at infostatsystems.com>
>Subject: RE: [AccessD] Number vs text data type
>To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving"
>         <accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Message-ID:
>         <E61FC1D4B1918244905B113C680BEA8631236E at infoserver01.infostat.local>
>Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
>Same holds true for social security numbers in the US and for telephone
>numbers everywhere.  There are good reasons NOT to use numbers for some
>kinds of numeric data, which is probably where the argument comes from
>in the first place, that and the old approach of squeezing everything
>into the smallest possible datatype to shave storage bytes.
>
>Charlotte Foust
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Susan Harkins [mailto:ssharkins at bellsouth.net]
>Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 7:32 AM
>To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
>Subject: Re: [AccessD] Number vs text data type
>
>
>What about Zip Codes, etc... what possible purpose would you have for
>treating such an entry as a number?
>
>I'm afraid this isn't old school -- it's still very alive and with us.
>
>Susan H.
>
>
> > That sounds like one of my co-workers who comes from the
> > old school early-days C and COBOL programming. He makes everything
> > text unless an actual calculation must be performed, even when that
> > doesn't necessarily make sense in context. I believe that if its a
> > number it should be treated as a number unless there is a very
> > compelling reason not to, for all of the reasons given so far and
> > probably others I haven't thought of. To me, logic tells
> > you that if the data is numeric you should use a number
> > data type, using text just muddies things up. As far as a
> > number field needing "additional resources", especially
> > for calculations, that makes no sense at all to me. Some
> > number types may take additional storage space as compared
> > to holding the same digit characters in a text type, and
> > that can become an issue for DBAs when they are working
> > under short drive space conditions. Other than, I can't
> > think of a resource reason.
> >
> > Ron