Character Field Formats

[CraigSomberg]

I was wondering what everyone felt about the fomats in character
fields where the front end application accepts anything.

I wouldn't want a customer table where the customer name was lower
case on one, upper on another and who knows on the third.

If character fields are not consistent, then formatting will have to
happen every time someone access the data for reporting - as an
example ...

Thanks,

Craig

[Erland Sommarskog]

CraigSomberg (cs******@dwr.com) writes:

I was wondering what everyone felt about the fomats in character
fields where the front end application accepts anything.

I wouldn't want a customer table where the customer name was lower
case on one, upper on another and who knows on the third.

If character fields are not consistent, then formatting will have to
happen every time someone access the data for reporting - as an
example ...

I'm not really sure what you are asking here. Indeed, permitting only
uppercase bodes for consistency. But permitting mixed case does give
a more friendly appearence. Having the app to enforce a certain case by
captilalizing the first letter in each part of the name, is unfortunately
not always that bright. For instance, it's Ludwig van Beethoven, but
Van Morrison.
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, es****@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
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