Re: Using 12/31/9999 in a date field

That's a very good point, of course.

There are a number of side effects that could follow from (a) indexing on just a date-only column, and (b) indexing a column where a single value can have a large number of rows (especially with a constant stream of new rows appearing and old rows disappearing). You may be heading for the worst possible combination - though how much that matters does depend to a very large extent on the actual pattern of use of the column.

Regards

Jonathan Lewis
http://jonathanlewis.wordpress.com/all-postings

Author: Oracle Core (Apress 2011)
http://www.apress.com/9781430239543

• Original Message ----- From: "Michael Haddon" <m.haddon_at_tx.rr.com> To: <oracle-l_at_freelists.org> Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2013 12:54 AM Subject: Re: Using 12/31/9999 in a date field

| This is a perfect case of a lopsided index if the column is indexed. It
| would result in a huge number of gaps in the leaf blocks as the records
| were updated to a valid date value. I would never recommend this.
|

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