Dear all

I have a db table for all fields used in a calculation.

id field_name
-------------
01 Telephone Number
02 Number of Children
... ...

Now I wish to add a column of a boolean value to represent if it makes
sense to sum up this field. let's say, it makes sense to sum up number
of children so you know how many children in total are there, but it
doesn't make sense to sum up telephone number.

id ? field_name
-------------
01 N Telephone Number
02 Y Number of Children
... ...

The question is what would you choose for column name?
1. "whether or not make sense to sum up this field" -- too long;
2. "sum-able" -- is it a good idea to create new word? Also values
are always sum-able in certain sense.

Thanks in advance for better word for this.

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

In article <69fvs3F331a0hU1 (AT) mid (DOT) individual.net>, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
English isn't my mother-tongue, either, but the word "countable" is the
first to my mind, giving an idea whether you have there an amount (like
the number of children, or an amount of money), or just a string of
digits (like phone number or birthdate).

--

Sananvapaus on perusoikeus, ei erioikeus!
Laura Kataja
kisuli miau iki poäng fi
Kuvaelma: <http://www.helsinki.fi/~likataja/Kirjakauppa.html>

Zhang Weiwu <zhangweiwu (AT) realss (DOT) com> writes:

The example of a telephone number is easily solved for this case:
don't make telephone numbers as numeric types. There are no numeric
operations that make sense on telephone numbers, so store them as a
text type or some more-specific type, not numeric.

This is true for many values that superficially appear to be numbers.
Any identifying "number" (such as a postal code) is useless as a
numeric value, so should instead be stored as a sequence of characters
(e.g. one of the text types).

Do you have an example of a domain that actually is numeric, but still
makes no sense to sum the values?

--
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Ben Finney