[AccessD] [Spam]8.31 Re: 2 quick questions

I agree John -- hence my questions. I don't think this custom id is 
necessary and is apt to cause you trouble.

Susan H.

> Basic rule of database design...don't use intelligent keys. In other 
> words,
> a key that may change over time (eg, Joe gets adopted and changes his
> surname) or may be incorrect (eg, Joe's birthday was entered as 49 instead
> of 94), or could be duplicated (Joe's twin sister Joelle would have the 
> same
> key). I deal with name/address data all the time and I always create a
> unique sequential number (eg, Access's Autonumber) as a customer ID. You 
> may
> want to create a Lookup key, such as the one you proposed, which can be
> indexed and used for searching. On a fairly small database, you can build 
> an
> index on the full lastname+firstname+DOB. And the DOB should always be in
> YYYYMMDD order.
>