Re: Full Name as Composite Attribute

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 16:38:48 +0000, David Cressey wrote:

> "Full Name", as one attribute of a person, even though it is composed of
> smaller attributes, makes a lot of sense.

Isn't this the same problem as "what's an atomic value"? A word (a string) is composed of individual syllables and characters. So is the word atomic? - I'd say "yes", because it looses meaning if dissected. In Date's "Introduction to Database Systems", I think I've read Date's definition of "atomic" as "without user-visible parts", however that definition is still not very practical. So how is an "atomic value" defined?

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Greetings from Troels Arvin, Copenhagen, Denmark