Re: Values have types ??

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 10:20:32 -0700, Costin Cozianu wrote:

> 2
>
> (pick your favorite representation in bits and pieces and your favorite
> set theory)
>
> I wonder if you can clarify for me what type do you think it has.

        Could be integer, real, string...

        Or even better, USD, GBP, CHF, code...

        The discussion was about values implicitly *in a RDB*. There, a value will *always* have a type. So your trap catches no mice... for this kind of mouse always live in a RDB.

        More basically, even outside of a RDBMS the mere context already gives hints as to type.

        For example, take 20. To translate that as "ten", what I bet you've done automagically, you have to assume base ten... it doesn't mean "ten" in octal, binary or hexadecimal. So the context had already given you a (admittedly weak) type constraint.

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