On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:53:33 +0200 Andreas Säger <ville...@t-online.de> wrote:
> Am 15.08.2012 22:31, Thomas Taylor wrote: > > It's been way too many years since I did commercial programming on > > databases and I've forgotten some of the terms (formats) for > > numerical data. I'm trying to create a simple database of local > > facilities/doctors/stores with Base using the wizards. The formats > > that are giving me trouble are: > > > > Text[VARCHAR] - a variable number of type CHAR? > > Text(fix)[CHAR] - does that mean a fixed number of CHAR? > > Right. > > > Integer[INTEGER] \ > > Numeric[NUMERIC] > How do these differ? > > Decimal{DECIMAL] / > > > There are tiny integers, small integers, integers and big integer > numbers. Decimal(8,3) has 8 digits, 3 of them behind the point. > I don't know about Numeric. Never used that. > > > I looked in LibreOffice help but couldn't find the definitions. > > Some help would be appreciated. > > > Base is not a database program. It is a mere frontend. You may decide > to wrap a HSQLDB backend into the frontend file which is a very > unstable construction and should be avoided for production databases. > The embeddable HSQLDB 1.8 is documented here: > > http://www.hsqldb.org/doc/1.8/guide/ch09.html > > > > For instance, which format is used for a telephone number? > > (1.800.123.4567)? > > > > That is text unless you want to practice some arithmetic witchcraft > on phone "numbers". A pattern control on a form can enforce the right > pattern of points and digits. > > > Thanks to both Jay and Andreas. Beginning to make sense. Tom -- “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” Albert Pine -- Tom Taylor - retired penguin AMD Phenom II x4 955 -- 4GB RAM -- 2x1.5TB sata2 openSUSE 12.1x86_64 openSUSE 12.2x86_64 KDE 4.7.2, FF 7.0 KDE 4.8.4, FF 13.0 claws-mail 3.8.0 registered linux user 263467 linxt-At-comcast-DoT-net -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+h...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted