Re: Field naming: Same name represents different data

From: - g r e g - <gwarnick_at_fhcrc.org>
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:39:35 -0800
Message-ID: <3E5A58D7.6090200_at_fhcrc.org>


While not great practice (I'd be frustrated) I don't know of any rule that says that it cannot be done. There may be an internal procedure at your office/site that precludes one from creating in one database two different 'meanings' for the same named domain. But, off the top of my head, if you run a cheese ordering buisiness, you might have a database where the domain named AGE in one table contains the value of a cheese-maker's age code, while another table flags boolean values for a past due bill into the domain AGE. Yeah, its silly and surely a bad practice, but not against the rules, I believe. Greg

Lee C. wrote:
> I am still fairly new to database design and analysis. I have just
> come across a database that frequently uses the same field name to
> represent different data (data that would be from different domains).
> When tablename.fieldname is considered, of course, the names are
> unique. I thought there was a general rule about this, but cannot
> find any relevant information. Can someone please point me directly
> to an online source that will help me to understand this?
>
> Thanks.
Received on Mon Feb 24 2003 - 18:39:35 CET

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