On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 11:19:25 +0100, David W Noon wrote: > On Thursday 31 Jul 2003 10:39 in > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 2trax > ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > >> It seems to me that the most flexible way is to use a text field to hold >> everything, apart from the country which suits a varchar? and perhaps have >> another dedicated varchar field to hold USA ZIP codes / UK post codes for >> easy searching? > > There are ISO standard codes for countries: US, CA, GB, AU, etc. These each > fit into a fixed-width CHAR(2) field. > > I would use a VARCHAR of some large size and map it into structured fields > using views. Each view is built with > WHERE country_code = 'xx' > for the matching 'xx' in the ISO standard. This will allow you to search in > a structured manner, provided you have the country code.
David, Thanks for a good suggestion. I'll take a crack at it. Cheers, Sam. --- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net Complaints to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
