Re: help !!! use number or date to store date ????

sptong_at_singnet.com.sg (Tong Siew Pui) wrote:

>If I want to store the month and year in a table, should I use
> year number(4)
> month number(2)
>or
>should I use date to store the value but default the day to 1st of the
>month ???
 

>What are the advantages and disadvantages ?????

I would use the date format for the following reasons:

1. Validation of input is built-in
2. large variety of output formats (both numeric and character)
3. single field to use in comparisons, ordering, and/or indexing
4. easy to get current month and year (sysdate or to_date(to_char(sysdate,'mmyyyy'),'mmyyyy') )

for numeric to do above

1. where month between 1 and 12
2. numeric is easy and char must be passed thru to_char *and* to_date
3. 2 field for above
4. must pass sysdate thru to_char and to_num for each field

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Keith McKendry                     |  73071.3233_at_compuserve.com
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