Re: Help! I can't support normalization

"Paul Vernon" <paul.vernon_at_ukk.ibmm.comm> wrote in message news:<aqe3e2$ne8$1_at_sp15at20.hursley.ibm.com>...
> "Paul" <pbrazier_at_cosmos-uk.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:51d64140.0211070129.6fab7168_at_posting.google.com...
> > OK then, what about complex numbers?
> >
> > Logically they are one "thing" so should you store them as "3+4i" in
> > one column?
> > Or as real part and imaginary part in two columns?
> > Or even in two columns r, theta where z = r * e ^ theta?
> > It's only for our convenience that we split them into two parts, the
> > complex numbers with integer (real, imaginary) parts are countable so
> > we could easily map them one to one with the integers.
>
> Don't confuse possible representations (read D&D) from the actual values
> themselves.

The question is if a representation spanning into 2 columns is legitimate. For example,

table circuit (

    voltage_absolute_value NUMBER,
    voltage_phase NUMBER
)

has r * e ^ theta representation of complex number spanning into 2 columns. The canonic design according to D&Co. would be

table circuit (

    voltage COMPLEX
)

since they seem to feel uneasy about a value being decomposed. IMHO, this doesn't really matter, because we can always define a view that converts one representation into another:

select voltage_absolute_value*cos(voltage_phase) as voltage_real,

       voltage_absolute_value*sin(voltage_phase) as voltage_imaginary from circuit Received on Fri Nov 08 2002 - 19:37:23 CET