Re: database design and refactoring

On Jan 3, 2007, at 5:24 , Luca Ferrari wrote:

> Running the database, the users
> decided to place numbers as strings, so values like 00110002 and so
> on.

Note that '00110002' is not a number (i.e., it's not equal to
110002): it's a string of digits.

> is there a tool or a
> way to easily do such refactoring or should I write a program on my
> own to do
> this?

Not that I know of, though ALTER TABLE <table> ALTER <column>
TYPE ... is pretty easy to use.

> And moreover a database design question: is a better idea to choose
> always
> (when possible) numeric keys?

Depends on your requirements. This is an oft-discussed topic about
which you can find many more opinions by googling on natural and
surrogate keys.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net