On Sat, 3 May 2008 19:12:46 +0000 "David Strauss" <david@fourkitchens.com> wrote:
But they probably support another bit-based format.
The smallest thing you can find in SQL92 I think is boolean. As said most DB support bit packing and some have aggregate functions over boolean fields. char doesn't look as a good choice because on UTF8 may have some overhead, it is ordered according to locale and in need it misses interesting aggregate functions. I don't know SQL standards and enough implementations to know if you can avoid both problems in most DB. Some DB let you define collation and encoding on a field base... some don't even let you define the encoding/collation on a table base. The smallest SQL92 int is 2 bytes (smallint) someone may think it is too large but it is very well handled by modern CPU and is not affected by locale nor encoding... if you've more statuses... -- Ivan Sergio Borgonovo http://www.webthatworks.it