Path: news.easynews.com!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!newshosting.com!news-xfer2.atl.newshosting.com!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!diablo.theplanet.net!news.indigo.ie!not-for-mail From: Paul Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: The BOOLEAN data type Message-ID: References: Organization: Néant X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.50 Lines: 38 Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 20:19:09 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 159.134.146.204 X-Complaints-To: abuse@eircom.net X-Trace: news.indigo.ie 1049483861 159.134.146.204 (Fri, 04 Apr 2003 20:17:41 BST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 20:17:41 BST Xref: newsfeed1.easynews.com comp.databases.theory:25664 X-Received-Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 12:17:21 MST (news.easynews.com) 71062.1056@compuserve.com says... > >>I'm working on a project where we store people's gender - what's > >> wrong with using a boolean for that? > There is an ISO Standard code for gender and you should use Standards > whenever they exists. > 0= unknown > 1= male > 2= female > 9= N/A, lawful person such as a church, school, corporation When you're doing a system for Youth Hostel memberships, 1 and 2 are all you'll really need! > Gender is not a flag; it is an attribute. A flag reports a state, an > attribute takes a value. OK then, what about Table Billing(blah...., Paid BOOLEAN NOT NULL, blah...) Is this not a valid use of a Boolean field? Paul... -- plinehan__AT__yahoo_DOT_com