I would like to ask for opinions on an issue we have recently been faced
with at the Queensland Museum. We are presently redesigning our Social
History database, and in the process have discovered that database date
fields require complete dates or nothing. It has to have day of month,
month, year. (Australian standard format, folks.) Many of the objects in the
collection have imprecise dates attached, giving only month and year, and
often only year.

We see two choices. We can use interger fields instead, and lose the
convienence of all the features and utilitys associated with date fields.
Alternately we can use date fields with a notional date (1st of month if
month is known, first of January if only year is known) and tag this data
with a warning that it was inaccurate. However, we are concerned that we
would still be putting false info into the database.

We would be interested in hearing from any on the list who have faced a
similar problem and how you dealt with it. Thanks in advance for the advice.

Peter Volk
Peter Volk               |"I am not stupid, I am not expendable
Queensland Museum        | and I am not going." - Avon (Blakes Seven)
Australia                |
[log in to unmask]  | I speak for myself, not my employer.