Hi, Is there any way that I can consistently (across all tables) add a parameter defining "what" each column "is"? (sorry, crappy grammar and ill-formed question). I want to be able to embed in the database parameters that tell it how to interpret each column. In other words, while the TYPE for two columns might be text/char/varchar/etc., the data that each contained could have vastly different interpretations. For example, it might be a surname. Or, the name of a city. Or, the name of a handtool. Or a street address. I would like the support routines to be able to look at these parameters and adjust queries and other activities accordingly. So, when matching a surname, it might apply some heuristics built on metaphone. Yet, when matching a book's title, may try some simple substitutions and permutations (e.g., stripping words like "The" from the beginning of the title; or relaxing rules for punctuation or capitalization). Burying this information in the database itself will let the applications be unconcerned with adding this level of support at their level -- and afford all applications a consistent set of capabilities. On a similar, but different, note, are there any ways to "hide" a value behind each datum? I.e. to treat each entry as a struct containing the actual data type PLUS this "hidden" value? Without explicitly creating ADT's for each potential datatype? (sorry, I realize both questions are off-the-wall and I can undoubtedly come up with kludges to implement them but I was hoping for something "slicker"... :>) Thanks! --don
