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

In article <1995Jan24.175713.18442_at_rossinc.com> davidgi_at_rossinc.com (David J. Gimpelevich) writes:
>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...
>

So what about houses with more than one phone, multiple people with the same name, with a guest house across the county line in a different area code, divorced parents who sometimes live together and each use different names for personal and business purposes and...

jg

>-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"

-- 
Joel Garry           joelga_at_amber.rossinc.com            Compuserve 70661,1534
These are my opinions, not necessarily those of Ross Systems, Inc.
%DCL-W-SOFTONEDGEDONTPUSH, Software On Edge - Don't Push.  
panic: ifree: freeing free inodes...