[AccessD] Number vs text data type

Hi Mrs. Anonymous

> While I not been following this thread completely, why would ZIP code
> ever be a number?

Because in many countries they are numbers. Here, such an identifier
is not even called a "postal code" but a "postal number".

> Besides leading zeros, many non-US postal codes are
> mixed alpha-numeric ... Do you mean you'd add another field for that,
> rather than a "postal code" field to handle ANY country?

If you are into internationalization, handling postal codes and
address formats is a major task. You would develop a set of optimized
postal code and address formats and for each country select the set to
apply. 
For those sets for countries using alpha-numeric postal codes (like
Britain) you would, of course, have a field format and data type to
accommodate that.

However, most developers fall back to add a second or third address
line for "strange addresses" where you can type in postal code etc. in
free style.

/gustav