[forwarded submission from a non-member address -- rjk]
From: Ask Bjoern Hansen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 15:50:12 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: [Boston.pm] unformatting phone numbers
To: Elaine -HFB- Ashton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc: "Tolkin, Steve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Elaine -HFB- Ashton wrote:
[...]
> Americans have, for a long time, been able to ignore the rest of the world
> in things such as this but soon I think it will mean a loss of business if
> we do. The system is a little different but not really terribly complex.
> You have a country code, a city code and a 6-7 digit phone number. There
> is no standard though and you'd probably have to store templates for each
> country.
In Denmark on the other hand all numbers are now 8 digits, end of
story. And it's getting more common to have a number series for
extensions (say 12345670 is the main number, then 1234567[1-9] are the
direct numbers to each employee).
But I am afraid an easy to deal with system like that is the exception.
In Sweden phonenumbers have all kinds of lengths. Both the length of
the area code and the length of the full number. And like in the US
the area code is optional are often not written.
I forgot the story, but a friend who lived in China for some years
told that the phone system is *really* weird there. (twice they
changed all phone numbers for the whole neighborhood overnight; of
course without telling anyone).
Good luck. :-) I would follow the suggestion of storing the number
unaltered. If it is to be used by autodial, store it both ways or have
the client program "clean it up".
> However, this is much like formatting names for people, there is always
> going to be an exception.
or two. or three. or four. ...
- ask
--
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