Jason Pruim wrote:
The information is being displayed in a table, and can be sorted by any
of the fields. The purpose of the application I am writing is going to
be a online database, giving my customers access to their mailing list
24/7 from anywhere in the world.
Alot of the customers that my company deals with aren't the best when it
comes to computers, so it's a comfort level thing for them.
Also, I do have one customer that wants to be able to say to us "What do
you have for record #????" and have us be able say what it says for that
record. That customer is one of the people I want to switch over to here
ASAP and let her manage her mailing list.
But as I type that out, I think the reason I want a sequential address
number more then anything is to prevent the users from asking, "I only
have 900 records in my database, why do I have record numbers over
1,000?". But, if I were to use something like mysql_num_rows I could
display a total record count and just tell them to ignore the record
number until there was an issue right? I know that's on my end :) but I
think I am talking my self out off displaying sequential record numbers
and finding other ways to display the information :)
I think you're creating a problem where none exists. If your customers
can't understand that you give each record a unique ID and that when you
delete records you don't reuse those IDs then I think you need to get
new customers.
Here's a tip for free... don't call them record numbers, call them IDs.
The question your customer should be asking is "What do you have for
user #????".
If your customers do start asking about it, educate them rather than
trying to shield them from what is a really basic concept. As someone
has previously said in this thread, compare it to social security
numbers. The IDs are unique for life, so if a user gets deleted their ID
will never be reused. The IDs have no connection at all to the number of
users in the database.
It sounds like your getting it, but if you need any further
clarification on it I'll be happy to help.
-Stut
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http://stut.net/
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