Hyphenated Name Field

[Larry R Harrison Jr]

I have designed databases but have never come across any complications due
to the ridiculous situation of a hyphenated last name. As a database
designer (very junior level) I disdain anything unwieldly, and consider this
unwieldly.

I haven't dealt with it, as I said, but I figure if I do, I'd simply design
the text field to not accept hyphens, so Smith-Barney would be stored as
SmithBarney, or even Smithbarney as I commonly have the forms automatically
apply a Title Case to everything entered.

It is standard practice in many databases to leave such characters out, in
phone numbers for example even when an "input mask" is designed and it's
prompting you how to do everything and it asks you if you want to store the
hyphens the default is that it doesn't. This seems to be the smarter way to
go, as it prevents formatting pecularities from messing up searching &
sorting etc.

Is this how Smith-Barney should be dealt with--prevent the hyphen? Or would
feminazist-clients become too upset?

PS--this is NOT a troll message, not trying to upset anyone--again, I have
designed databases and am asking as such, as I have never come across this
yet but figure one day I will

LRH

[Tim Marshall]

Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:

I hate strays from the norm which complicate
things,

And that's what you will always have to contend with as a DB developer.

8)

Be prepared for furrowed foreheads of clients who are upset when they
discover a miniscule fraction of data is not dealt with. Those clients
will view such an app as garbage and will be unable to appreciate the
work and elegance you may have driven yourself into the ground to
provide... just because of that small fraction. Been there, done that. 8(
--
Tim http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^ "Whatcha doin?" - Ditto "TIM-MAY!!" - Me

[Larry R Harrison Jr]

Thanks for the heads-up. It does sound like something I'd encounter. I can
see it now--people flipping out because they try to enter "piou0" in the ZIP
CODE field and expecting it will magically recognize it as valid & process
it somehow.

I did have something happen a few years ago, when I designed a database to
import data from an Excel sheet but then it couldn't because the data came
"un-normalized," I basically would've had to "dumb down" my design to import
his data. It would have resulted in un-normalized data, insomuch that the
sales table would've had the names and addresses & phone numbers of each
sales client, when it had been designed to have a separate table for these
clients with only the id field of the client linked in the sales table. I
consulted on the newsgroup--should I "dumb down" my design so it could
import the data, or keep it & explain to the client that he needed the
supplier of the data to supply it in a slightly different format to be more
compatible with my database. Every last poster here voted the latter, and
that's what I did. I did so kindly, but it's what I did.

I lost the client. But I figured--I shouldn't dumb down my database,
especially since doing so would remove many of the features he had actually
been the one to ask for. I did later on, as my expertise improved, learn how
I could've actually done this for him. But at the time I couldn't. Live &
learn.

LRH
"Tim Marshall" <TI****@PurpleP andaChasers.Moe rtherium> wrote in message
news:d7******** **@coranto.ucs. mun.ca...

Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:

I hate strays from the norm which complicate things,

And that's what you will always have to contend with as a DB developer.

8)

Be prepared for furrowed foreheads of clients who are upset when they
discover a miniscule fraction of data is not dealt with. Those clients
will view such an app as garbage and will be unable to appreciate the work
and elegance you may have driven yourself into the ground to provide...
just because of that small fraction. Been there, done that. 8(
--
Tim http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^ "Whatcha doin?" - Ditto "TIM-MAY!!" - Me

[jimfortune]

Larry R Harrison Jr wrote:

<ji********@com pumarc.com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ f14g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

So is the thinking that the client would be bending things by asking
that this situation be handled.

James A. Fortune

In some cases, absolutely. For example, I have actually had persons before
wonder how come their attempts to enter data crashed when they tried to
enter the state in the Zip code. They enter some names as "O'Brien" and
others as "OBrien" and still others as "O Brien"--only to then wonder why
not all of those are sorted together as if they're the same. They wonder how
come a query they later add themselves for showing "O'Brien" returns
inaccurate numbers because of the other variations entered.

...

In closing--I typically post here with extremely practical questions, not
opiniated ones. I typically ask questions like "what syntax is appropriate
for creating a joint query in SQL." I will make sure to stick to such
questions in the future for the most part and hopefully not waste anyone's
time here; I realize Microsoft MVPs and the like are hanging out here to
help & don't want to get sucked into long-winded opinion discussions. I am
asking as a designer, not trying to be opiniated politically so much as that
the objective here is the protection of data integrity, not sucking up to
people's whimsical fascination with titles & so forth.

LRH

Opinions aside, if O'Brien, OBrien and O Brien are truly equivalent as
demonstrated by a table containing numerous misspellings then you can
run a query on that table to create tblAlternates as a way of merging
the variants.

tblPeople
PersonID PK
LastName Text
....

55 O'Brien

tblAlternates
AltID PK
VariantID FK
Preferred Y/N
NameVariant Text

21 8 -1 O'Brien
22 8 0 OBrien
23 8 0 O Brien

Obviously Preferred will be -1 for the preferred variation. You also
need to take requisite care that two different last names don't have
variants that are spelled the same.

Then in the AfterUpdate event of cbxLastName you can use SQL such as:

"SELECT NameVariant FROM tblAlternates WHERE VariantID IN (SELECT
VariantID FROM tblAlternates WHERE NameVariant = " & Chr(34) &
cbxLastName.Val ue & Chr(34) & ") AND Preferred = -1;"

If this SQL string returns a value you can replace the value entered in
cbxLastName with the the preferred version of the last name. At least
this way you only have to deal with variants that are new.

Opinions on. If people want whimsical titles then our sense of
protection of data integrity should protect those fanciful titles also.
Let someone else burst their bubble. Put the money in your wallet.

James A. Fortune

I will be following this closely:
Earlier this week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Longhorn, due in
2006, will have a new XML-based document format, code-named "Metro,"
that will be used to both print and share documents.
-- C|Net April 27, 2005

[David Howe]

If you don't hate women, perhaps you should not assume that those with
hyphenated names are "feminazis" (as you called them in another post).
Since this is a derogatory term, your use of it distinguishes you as a
mysogynist.

Major error: hyphenated names were not invented by feminists or
feminism. They are very common. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for
example, has a hypenated name with which she was born. She didn't pick
a hyphenated name. It IS her name. She didn't pick it to make a
feminist statement or to annoy some lowly coder.

Further, plenty of men (such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' brother and father)
have hyphenated names. Also, many commercial firms use similar
nomenclature (such as in the Smith-Barney example).

It is simply childish to characterize common customs as some sort of
personal affront to you. Further, I think your attitude as a developer
absolutely stinks. Your job is to help the client acheive their goals,
not to scold them for not conforming to your narrow view of the world as
you think it should be. As a developer, I think I have to find a way to
make the data work from the form to the data entry to the queries and to
the reports. That's MY problem and it's my job to solve it.
Accomodations to exceptions are a small price to pay when compared to a
disappointed client.

Were I your client or your supervisor, I'd fire you for your "can't-do"
attitude. Your mysogyny and borderline racism - yes, hyphenated names
are common to people with certain types of national origin - are
unacceptable and expose your employer and your client to liability. You
would be SO fired.

You say all this nonsense while you claim to be willing to accomodate a
client. I guess you are willing to accomodate only those client needs
that conform with your view of the world rather than the reality of the
client's data. That's the OPPOSITE of accomodation.

Your denial that you are hateful or sexist rings completely hollow.
Take your lousy attitude elsewhere and keep your dittohead politics out
of this forum.

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[David Howe]

If you are not trying to upset anyone, stop trying to upset people with
the name-calling. Completely unprofessional. Makes you look like a
real jerk.
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