[AccessD] Zip Code questions (was: Number vs text data type)

Zip codes start with 00210 at Portsmouth, NH and go through to 99950 at
Ketchikan, AK





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Arthur Fuller" <artful at rogers.com>
To: "'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'"
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 8:49 PM
Subject: [AccessD] Zip Code questions (was: Number vs text data type)


> Just out of curiosity, has anyone followed this up with actual
> benchmarks? (I ask this because a man with whom I communicate
> frequently, Joe Celko, a well-known SQL expert, has said that the lookup
> speed difference between a 10-char value and a long int on modern
> systems is the least significant of our problems.)
>
> Assuming you code 5+4 zips as 9-digit zips (eliminating the "-"), does
> anyone on the list have a sufficiently large sample to actually
> benchmark this meaningfully? By that I mean that about 1M rows, two
> columns, one of each data type, indexes to suit, and a timer to verify
> the results?
>
> And while I'm on the subject, does anyone have any ideas on how to
> negate the cache in repeated searches? I'm thinking that the way is to
> search for non-existent values, but that's just an armchair guess
> unsupported by facts or knowledge about cache-algorithms.
>
> Anybody got such a db that you can send me without violating copyrights
> etc.?
>
> Assuming factorial(9) is the maximum number of 5+4 zip codes, what is
> the actual number currently?
>
> Is there any zip code that begins with "0"? And if so, what about "00"?
>
> Is there any logic to the expansion from 5 to 5+4? I.e., they put in a
> housing development in zip 97600, each of ten buildings sufficiently
> large to warrant its own zip code, how are they assigned? Incrementally?
> (Not necessarily step 1).
>
> One final question: is there any extant zip code that spans more than
> one city or town or other regional designation?
>
> Curiosity killed the programmer.
>
> TIA,
> Arthur
>
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