RE: Storing single numbers in the database

  • From: "Mercadante, Thomas F (LABOR)" <Thomas.Mercadante@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <sbecker6925@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:46:51 -0400

Sandra,

 

The only issue is that this is an intuitively wrong choice and a weak
argument from the developer.  S/he is basically saying "I'm too lazy to
treat a value and a database column the correct way".  You can't stop
s/he from doing this.  There will be more important things to fight
over.

 

There is no Oracle issue with storing a number in a char or varchar
field.  Think of it this way - if s/he decided to store a Y or N value
instead, would you care?

 

Tom

 

 

________________________________

From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sandra Becker
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 3:05 PM
To: Baumgartel, Paul
Cc: oracle-l
Subject: Re: Storing single numbers in the database

 

Paul,

 

The developer believes that numbers are just characters, same as
letters, ergo they are treated the same way in the database.  I know
that the values are stored with different types, but beyond that, I
don't know what issues could bite me.  I have seen code for other
columns defined as CHAR or VARCHAR2 that use <, >, and <> to pull the
desired rows.  Would this be relevant to the discussion as well? 

 

Sandy

 

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