Re: datatype advice numeric vs. varchar

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On 01/18/07 00:22, Michael Glaesemann wrote:
>
> On Jan 18, 2007, at 15:15 , Gene wrote:
>
>> My calculations for disk space based off some information i found
>> online are ( 8 + ( 2 bytes for every four digits) ) for numeric and (
>> 4 + number of chars ) for a utf8 varchar datatype. Are these
>> calculations still valid and has anyone tried using numeric for this
>> purpose or is this really stupid?
>
> While telephone numbers typically consist of digits, they're not
> numbers: they're strings of digits. For example, a telephone number in
> Tokyo is (typically) a string of 10 digits, beginning with "03".
> 0311111111 as numeric would have unexpected results when retrieved.
> While you may not be concerned with Japanese phone numbers, I use it as
> an example to show that telephone "numbers" are actually strings.

Not only that, but since the number pad also has "*" & "#", there
/might/ be obscure times when you need to use them.

> In short, use strings (text/varchar).

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