I have Emmitt's predilections based on old-fashioned things like bytes of storage and instruction-processing, from back when storage and cpu cycles actually made a difference.
However, storing 1s and 0s also means that you almost aways have to translate that to a Y or N or T or F or Yes or No or True or False to present it back to the user in a report. If you store what has meaning to the end user, you don't have to translate it. Bill On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM, Emmitt Dove <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Jan, > > Out of habits formed when I was programming in Macro Assembler I would use > the integer. That's because I know that there will be fewer instructions > executed by the cpu to evaluate equality of the integer than with the > text. > (I've long wished for the ability to manipulate individual bits in a byte > so > as to be able to store eight 1/0 flags in one byte ...) > > Having said that, in today's world, the performance advantage is not going > to be noticeable unless your programs perform such evaluation intensively. > > Emmitt Dove > Manager, DairyPak Business Systems > Evergreen Packaging, Inc. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > (203) 643-8022 > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jan > Johansen > Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 10:49 AM > To: RBASE-L Mailing List > Subject: [RBASE-L] - Friday question > > G'Day, > > I need to add several columns to a table that will basically hold > True/False information. > > In the past I have always handled this with a TEXT column > defaulted to N and being able to change to Y. > But I'm curious now if this kind of information > is better handled with an INTEGER defaulted to 0 > and using 1 as true. > > Opinions? > > Jan > > >
