[AccessD] Number vs text data type

Zip codes aren't actually numbers, since they can have an extension.  It's a
string then.

Drew

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Harkins [mailto:ssharkins at bellsouth.net]
Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 10:32 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
>
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:42:15 -0400
>   CYNTHIA SPELL <CSPELL at jhuccp.org> wrote:
> >I will, that's a good idea.  What I've heard so far is
> >that logic tells you that if you don't need to calculate,
> >you should use text.  And that a number data type
> >requires additional resources in order for the field to
> >have the ability to do the calculating.
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