using string instead of int

[mavrick_101]

Often in code, when retrieving a value from table where I don't have to do
any math calculations, I store the value in a string variable instead of
converting to an int and then storing in an int variable.

Do you guys see anything wrong with this practice?

 

[Patrice]

And the value in the table is ? IMO it's best to always work with the
intended type (that is int if your database column is an int)....

 

[Mark Rae [MVP]]

Often in code, when retrieving a value from table where I don't have to do
any math calculations, I store the value in a string variable instead of
converting to an int and then storing in an int variable.

I guess there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it, but I can't imagine why
you would want to do this...

 

[Seth Williams]

Other than math calculations, sorting will definitely be a problem, since
text is sorted much differently than numbers
For instance 111 will come before 20, when sorting by text


David Wier
http://aspnet101.com
http://iWritePro.com - One click PDF, convert .doc/.rtf/.txt to HTML with no
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[mavrick_101]

Just to avoid unneccary Convet.ToInt32, while retrieving from an Int type
column in table.

 

[Stan]

Often in code, when retrieving a value from table where I don't have to do
It's an inefficient way to store an integer. A string requires more
memory and requires more complex (compiled) code to handle it.

So it makes no sense to do it just for the sake of it.

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

Just to avoid unneccary Convet.ToInt32, while retrieving from an Int type
column in table.

General rule of thumb. Do your database design. If a field is numeric then
use a number type. Don't mix presentation and data. Designing a database
for presentation sake will eventually come back to bite you and it is much
simpler to fix the presentation layer than your data.

LS

 

[mavrick_101]

No, the data in the tables is still <B>int</B> or whatever. I'm talking about
when retrieving in .aspx code.

 

[Lloyd Sheen]

No, the data in the tables is still <B>int</B> or whatever. I'm talking
about
when retrieving in .aspx code.

Sorry I am talking about database tables.
LS

 

[Patrice]

Humm how do you retrieve the data ? You shouldn't have to convert. You may
want to post a new thread about your original issue...

Actually I never even thought about not having the correct mapping (and I
don't even remember to have heard about doing such a thing)...

It has a potential to cause loads of problem (comparison, sort, type
checking etc...) or at best you'll have to change your code as soon as you
wan't to do actually something with this data + the conversion even if you
have to do one is not that a huge issue...

I would really use the correct mapping between the client side variables and
the server side data. As said earlier I suspect you have an earlier issue
you may want to post about...

 

[Hans Kesting]

When your database column has an "int" type, you can easily do
something like:

DataRow dr = MyDataSet.Rows[0];
int i = (int)dr["MyIntColumn"];

but this will fail if there are "null"s in that column (the field will
then contain a DbNull.Value). In that case use this:

int ?i2 = dr["MyIntColumn"] as int?;

Hans Kesting


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