Re: Which field to use


On Nov 10, 5:25 am, "Allen Browne" <AllenBro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I agree with your approach of using the 4 number fields.
It's atomic, and handles different types of domains sensibly.

So you would take a single atomic fact and split it into parts that
only have meaning when considered as a whole, for which you must
concatenate (generally an expensive operation) and change data type in
the process? Having to convert data every time your retrieve is always
a strong indication that your are storing it wrong.

Why not make it CHAR(15) and make the column/field Validation Rule

[0-9][0-9][0-9].[0-9][0-9][0-9].[0-9][0-9][0-9]

and probably some other rules beyond the basic pattern.

Jamie.

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