[Babase] lymphstates

Susan Alberts alberts at duke.edu
Wed Jul 21 09:32:56 EDT 2010


My only comment on this is that if the column is numeric but coded as  
a character it can be very confusing to query because it won't be  
natural or obvious that you need to query as a character, so I at any  
rate would often end up writing a query with this statement

Select * from lymphstates
where state = 1

Instead of

where state = '1'

Then I get an error and would have to bang my head a bit to figure out  
what I had done wrong–no one will be using this table  enough for it  
to be in their head all the time. I can see this being a problem. For  
this reason,  if it's numeric it should be coded as  numeric and if  
it's a character it would be better to have it as a letter. Does this  
make sense?  I'm okay with either.

Susan
On Jul 20, 2010, at 12:59 PM, Karl O. Pinc wrote:

> On 07/20/2010 10:23:27 AM, Lacey Maryott Roerish wrote:
>> Karl
>>
>> I am getting ready to populate the lymphstates table and realized you
>> have
>> it set as Character(1).  How much would it change about what you have
>> already done if this were Numeric (1) instead?  I had it set up as
>> 1-4
>> (or
>> 0-3 if that is more logical)..
>
> I can change it if you like but there's nothing wrong with
> using the digits 1 to 4 in a character(1) column.  The
> only difference is that you can add numeric columns and
> get averages and such.  I'd only want it to change to
> numeric if the column really is supposed to contain
> some kind of metric.
>
>
>
> Karl <kop at meme.com>
> Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                 -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
>
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--------------------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Dept of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC  
27708, 919-660-7272 (Ph), 919-660-7293 (Fax)







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