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Deciding on what field type to choose when you are defining fields in your
database is always very important. Sometimes you are going to define a field
that requires special handling. For example, like in a Number field. You will
want to use a Number field in any case where data needs to be treated as a
number, pretty obvious. As you see when you go into your Manage Database
dialog, you can choose a Number over a Text field. Now in a Text field you can
store numbers, but they lose their number-ness if that makes any sense.
For example, I could store the number 1 in a Text field and the number 2 in
another Text field and try to add the two of them together and they won't be
recognized as numbers and therefore I couldn't get the result of 3. So if I did
want to do some math against data that's stored in a field, I would decide to
use Number as my field type. So, for example, if the field needs to be
sorted in numerical order, first part of the mathematical equation, you are always
going to go with Number fields. A Number field can store up to 800 digits
of numeric precision, which is 400 to either side of the decimal point. Now you
may not actually need that level of precision, but even if you just need to have
a number, a Number field is going to be a critical choice for you.
FileMaker Pro won't prevent the entry of non-numeric data into a Number field
and unless of course there is some validation and we will talk about that in a
later movie. So you can enter text characters in, they will just simply be ignored.
So, in general if you need to enter mixed numeric and alphabetical data into a
field, you should consider using a Text field. But if the data that's stored
inside a field requires any special numeric handling then you should always
select a Number field. So, in general if you need to enter mixed
numeric and alphabetic data into a field you should consider using a Text field.
And if you need to store data in a field that may possibly be used in a mathematical
equation, it's always a good idea to choose the numeric filed type.