Re: 2 people with same address - sometimes - standard data model?y

In <1995Jan13.021926.8039_at_mcyork.wimsey.bc.ca> ianm_at_mcyork.wimsey.bc.ca (Ian McCutcheon) writes:

You can use the phone number as a unique household primary key -- that's what mail-order houses do. Of course, this will break down for business records...

-djg

>L Carl Pedersen (l.carl.pedersen_at_dartmouth.edu) wrote:
>: In article <1995Jan12.085053.39116_at_bsuvc.bsu.edu>,
>: 01tlcrabtree_at_bsuvc.bsu.edu (TIMOTHY LANE) wrote:
 

>: >In article <l.carl.pedersen-1101951942230001_at_kip-2-sn-53.dartmouth.edu>,
 l.carl.pedersen_at_dartmouth.edu (L Carl Pedersen) writes:
>: >> i need to track parents of students in order to send them certain mailings
>: >> etc. my plan is to stick them into the same table that i use for student,
>: >> as it already has all the columns i need etc. - so my table becomes a
>: >> people table.
>: >>
>: >> my issue is this: some high percentage of these parents live together at
>: >> the same address, but many do not (typically because they are divorced).
>: >>
>: >> for many reasons, it pains me to store *two* addresses when the addresses
>: >> for two people are often the same.
>: >>
>: >
>: > Normalization of data would suggest setting up a "household"
>: >table. One possible unique key to this table would be the 9 digit zip
>: >code. It may be tedious and boring to update your current zip to 9
>: >digits, but it may pay-off in the future.
>: >
>: >Tim Crabtree
 

>: i don't believe 9-digit zips are unique to a household. i think, for
>: example, that two people who live next door to each other may have the
>: same 9-digit zip.
 

>: if you have evidence to the contrary, i'd love to see it. we are already
>: moving toward 9-digit zips.
 

>Why have a 9 digit number the means anything? I would just assign a new
>address record and generate a number that is the next higher one (like an
>invoice number) Then store this number with the people that live at that
>address. So Kid, Mom and Dad may have the same number in their address field
>or different ones.
 

>Now how this gets in the way of presenting the data to the user is another
>story (that's normalization for you)... but it will save storage space.
 

>--
 

>// Ian (McYork)
>If Comments = True then "Great" else "Disclaim"
Received on Tue Jan 24 1995 - 18:57:13 CET