Re: Re: couple of general questions

Gregory Wood wrote:
>
> > Does anyone else get annoyed when going on to an american site to
> > register or buy something and find that the state field is only
> > 2 characters long?
>
> Sorry, I didn't realize that many other countries had states... the only
> other frame of reference that I have is Canadian Provinces, which also have
> 2 character codes. Since we only do business with countries in the United
> States and Canada I'm woefully ignorant of international standards. I'd also
> like to apologise for our backwards use of the Imperial measurement
> system... but that one is not my fault.

Umm, sorry.

I must have come over somewhat stronger than I intended.
It was supposed to be just a passing comment. The reason
I picked up on it is because it's the first thing people
think of when looking for a reason for fixed length fields
and (as pointed out on this thread) it's not even valid
for the whole of the US.

Personally, for all DB systems I build now I just make
*every* text field type text and never use char()/varchar().
Everything time I think I've made it long enough, someone
comes up with an example that's longer. The performance
difference is marginal or non-existant.

Don't think I'm attacking you, I'm just trying to help...

--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@cupid.suninternet.com>
http://cupid.suninternet.com/~kleptog/