Primary keys...Text or Number?

[oilcan]

Which do you use, and why? Do you use both cases situationally?

I have not developed a standard on which way I choose to go with these. Sometimes it seems like using text is better to me, but I'm afraid I'm not grasping the full ramifications of each.

Please share your ideas!

[bcooney]

Hello. I use numbers exclusively. I've read that the index is smaller, and they sort in created order in a dev layout.

[Ocean West]

Well I prefer TEXT because for all my keys I am using Base36 UID's

http://www.nightwing.com.au/FileMaker/demos9/demo910.html

text is also required if you need to do multi-key (a return separated list of values) say a list of ID's (text or number) to the primary key in another table ( text or number).

Since keys are INTERNAL to the solution there isn't a reason i can think of that requires it to be a number, sequences or sorting can be handled with another field. Such as Invoice numbers (for the user to see, that can be an serialized number field )

As example you will have a UID and a Invoice Number field, invoice line items don't need to be related to the invoice number field - but to the UID.

[Vaughan]

I love religious debates. :

I used text fields until one night I did a huge data import and sorted by the primary key to ensure the records were imported in creation order.

It was a long night.

[Vaughan]

I should add that if a multi-key field needs to relate to the numeric key, the multi-key needs to set to text.

[Vaughan]

... and then I realise that *everything* I've just posted was already said by Stephen and Barbara. :