Re: Philosophical question...define table to be load from external data with integer or decimal fields...

So Chuck,

Any thoughts on which would be more suitable for ID codes? Integer or
packed?

Charles



On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Charles Wilt <charles.wilt@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Chuck,

Good point.

In the example given, Myfld1-3 are ID codes making up a composite primary
key.

I've also got single digit flag fields. Most of the fields that I'll be
doing arithmetic calculations will have decimal points. Of course, now
that I liike at the data a bit close, they are implied decimals...but
that's another issue.

I was already looking out for fields defined as numeric that really might
be better suited to char due to the need for substring.

Charles



On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 2:46 PM, CRPence <CRPbottle@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 22-Jan-2014 10:51 -0800, Charles Wilt wrote:

Philosophical question for you all...

I'm creating a new table to hold data received from an external source.

The specs given include

Name, Type/Length, Picture
MyFld, N/5, 9(5)

So MyFld is a 5 digit number...

I could defined this as Packed/Zoned 5,0
Or I could use integer (or even small integer since the current
number of values is less than 1000)

Since I know DB2 and RPG for that matter perform best with integer,
I'm leaning that direction. But I can't help but think that Packed
(5,0) is more correct.

Thoughts?

I would decide according to the storage requirements for the data [in
both dataspace and an access path], and according to how the data will
be used in programs and queries which is likely dependent on what the
data represents. I infer from the comment about "perform best", that
the data might be used in calculations [e.g. aggregates]? But was that
implied? The /digits/ might instead, effectively never get used in
arithmetic calculations; perhaps used only in derivations that might
just as easily be a substring, such that storage as numeric may have
little value other than decreased storage requirements.? And if the
digits represent something else like a time or a date, then possibly
better stored as that respective data type. What I mean about depending
on what the data represents: A 5-digit zip-code or a YYJJJ date value
might be represented better as something entirely different than how a
5-digit number that represents the count of a number of items that might
need to be summed or decremented.

--
Regards, Chuck
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