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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-NZ link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Hi Steve<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Firebird Fb does not have a native boolean type. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I use a smallint for my Boolean types. 1=True, 0=F. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There are many ways to define and use Booleans in Fb.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Eg. CREATE TABLE BCD_CONNECTIONS (<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> CONNECTION_ID ID /*Integer NOT NULL*/ NOT NULL,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> FIRST_TS TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> CURRENT_TS TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> MACHINE TEXT24 /*Varchar(24) */ DEFAULT 'Unknown' NOT NULL,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> SECURITY_CODE TEXT48 /*Varchar(48) */ DEFAULT 'illegal' NOT NULL,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> MACHINE_ID Integer,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> USER_ID Integer,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> USER_NAME TEXT64 /*Varchar(64) */,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> B_IN_WINSLEEP Smallint DEFAULT 0,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> CONSTRAINT BCD_CONNECTIONS_PK PRIMARY KEY (CONNECTION_ID)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>);<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>So these Booleans can be indexed. Tables can have many Booleans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>ID, TEXTNN are my defined Domains in Fb.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Russell<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> delphi-bounces@listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces@listserver.123.net.nz] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Steve Peacocke<br><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, 30 March 2014 3:19 p.m.<br><b>To:</b> NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List<br><b>Subject:</b> [DUG] Using Boolean (Char(1)) in Firebird<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Hi all,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I'm playing around with a Firebird database and wanted to know from you DB experts out there how you handle booleans in a table.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>These could be as simple as<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> ActiveRecord (Y/N)<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> AccountTransactionType (I/E) - (Income or Expense)<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>That last I would normally think would be "Income (Y/N)" so that would be a boolean too.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>My understanding is that this will never be indexed, even if you specifically add an index to it. So how do you handle it. There may be several boolean fields in a table definition.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>As these tables c an contain several hundred thousand records, this could potentially slow down any query to say total all records last 3 years where Active and Income - as the only index would then be on the date field, there is a possibility that this could potentially be a very slow query.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I've heard of others creating another table to create, say, non-Avtive record ID's, but this one table could have several booleans, therefore creating several new tables (combining then into a single table with the field name would cause the same problem).<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Any thoughts?<br clear=all><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><br>Steve Peacocke<br>Mobile: +64 220 612-611<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://nz.linkedin.com/pub/steve-peacocke/1/a06/489" target="_blank">Linkedin Professional Profile</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>