@Dave On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:18 PM, David Johnston <pol...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>>> the data type does not need any arithmetic operations (as of > integers). > > > > You arguably do not have a number but simply a string that looks like a > number. Other examples are zip-codes and phone-numbers if you ignore > symbols. Thus you should probably use an appropriately sized char/varchar. > > Do you think using char/varchar which in this case will take about 20 bytes for each entry is more proper than using bigint with only 4 bytes? > > Just something to consider; there is no hard and fast rule about this kind > of thing. If you can think of any logical use of arithmetic operators, even > if you do not need them now, you should use an integer. > The data is some kind of identifiers. I don't think they will need any kind of arithmetic operators at all :) thank you in advance Arash
