[AccessD] [Spam] Re: Why Change Field Size/was Change Field Size

Way back when, in the days of Clipper, Artful.Lib included a phone number
validation function that obeyed all the rules internationally that were then
current. Then populations grew and phone number prefixes ran out of suffixes
and then they started breaking the rules. Currently, I can't think of a rule
set that guarantees the validity of a phone number, and even if I could, I
would give it a life expectancy of a couple of years at best.
A.

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John Colby
Sent: December 5, 2005 6:43 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: Re: [AccessD] [Spam] Re: Why Change Field Size/was Change Field
Size

I just ran into a field the other day.  PolicyID, guaranteed to NEVER be
more than 10 characters, so the field was set to 10 characters (by the
previous programmer).  

Guess what?  We finally (3 years later) got a policed that was waaaay more
than 10 characters.  Of course the entire policy record could not go in,
which prevented the claim from being processed.  All users must get out of
the database so that I can open up the field (to 255 characters of course). 

I don't care WHAT the business rule is, text data can and will change.  SSN
is a good example.  It is guaranteed to be XXX-XX-XXXX except that they are
running out of SSNs (50 years later) and guess what is going to change in
the next few years...

Length types of rules are not the thing (IMHO) that should be enforced at
the DB level.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com