Thread: Re: OT: Address Fields

On Thursday 31 Jul 2003 10:39 in
<pan.2003.07.31.09.39.34.792868@salterprojects.com>, 2trax
(2trax@salterprojects.com) 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.

--
Regards,

Dave  [RLU#314465]
======================================================
dwnoon@spamtrap.ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
Remove spam trap to reply via e-mail.
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On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 11:19:25 +0100, David W Noon wrote:

> On Thursday 31 Jul 2003 10:39 in
> <pan.2003.07.31.09.39.34.792868@salterprojects.com>, 2trax
> (2trax@salterprojects.com) 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.
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