sqlite3 error

[John Salerno]

Here's my script:

import sqlite3

con = sqlite3.connect ('labdb')
cur = con.cursor()
cur.executescri pt('''
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Researchers;
CREATE TABLE Researchers (
researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
);
''')

And here's the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python25\my scripts\labdb\d btest.py", line 19, in <module>
''')
OperationalErro r: near ")": syntax error

>>>

My script looks just like the example in the docs, so I'm not sure what
I'm doing wrong. The error message seems like it should be easy to
figure out, but all I did was close the triple quotes and then close the
parentheses, just like the example.

Hope someone can shed some light on this! :)

[Tim Chase]

Re: sqlite3 error

import sqlite3

>
con = sqlite3.connect ('labdb')
cur = con.cursor()
cur.executescri pt('''
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS Researchers;
CREATE TABLE Researchers (
researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
);
''')
>
And here's the error:
>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python25\my scripts\labdb\d btest.py", line 19, in <module>
''')
OperationalErro r: near ")": syntax error

>>>

>
My script looks just like the example in the docs, so I'm not sure what
I'm doing wrong. The error message seems like it should be easy to
figure out, but all I did was close the triple quotes and then close the
parentheses, just like the example.
>
Hope someone can shed some light on this! :)

My guess would be the extra comma on the nameGiven line...most
SQL engines I've used would choke on that

- nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
+ nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL


-tkc

[John Salerno]

Re: sqlite3 error

Tim Chase wrote:

My guess would be the extra comma on the nameGiven line...most SQL
engines I've used would choke on that
>
- nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
+ nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL

You're right! I think that must have been leftover from when it wasn't
the last line in the query. Thanks!

[John Machin]

Re: sqlite3 error


John Salerno wrote:

CREATE TABLE Researchers (
researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,

A bit OT, but one answer to the "can you make a living with just
Python" question is "Yup, tool of choice for rummaging in and fixing
data that's been mangled by users cramming it into dodgy data models"
:-)

(1) Consider that some countries have states/provinces with 3-letter
abbreviations (e.g. Australia) or no abbreviation than I'm aware of in
a Latin alphabet (e.g. China).

(2) It's not apparent how you would use the first, last, and given
names columns, especially with two of them being "not null". Consider
how you would store e.g.:
J Edgar Hoover
DJ Delorie
Sukarno
35
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
Molnar Janos
Fatimah binte Rahman
Zhang Manyu

Cheers,
John

[John Salerno]

Re: sqlite3 error

John Machin wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

>CREATE TABLE Researchers (
> researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
> birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
> birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
> birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
> birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
> birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
> birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
> nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
> nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
> nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,

>
A bit OT, but one answer to the "can you make a living with just
Python" question is "Yup, tool of choice for rummaging in and fixing
data that's been mangled by users cramming it into dodgy data models"
:-)
>
(1) Consider that some countries have states/provinces with 3-letter
abbreviations (e.g. Australia) or no abbreviation than I'm aware of in
a Latin alphabet (e.g. China).

Good point. I guess since this program is for my own use, I just figured
I could stick with the American style abbreviation. But it's not as if I
actually considered that this wouldn't always work, so it's good to be
aware of the issue.

(2) It's not apparent how you would use the first, last, and given
names columns, especially with two of them being "not null". Consider
how you would store e.g.:
J Edgar Hoover
DJ Delorie
Sukarno
35
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
Molnar Janos
Fatimah binte Rahman
Zhang Manyu

Not sure I follow you on some of these examples. In the case of J Edgar
Hoover, I would just put the full name for his first name, or if "J" is
entered, then just that, I suppose. Given name will be first name +
middle name(s). (I took most of this schema from a baseball database, so
maybe it's just something that worked better there.)

[John Salerno]

Re: sqlite3 error

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

On Wed, 27 Sep 2006 18:41:54 GMT, John Salerno
<johnjsal@NOSPA Mgmail.comdecla imed the following in comp.lang.pytho n:
>

>You're right! I think that must have been leftover from when it wasn't
>the last line in the query. Thanks!

>
You also, based upon the cut&paste, have a stray
>
"")
>
(or something similar in the last line)

I don't see this. The code works now, though. Maybe it was something
carried over by pasting.

[John Salerno]

Re: sqlite3 error

Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:05:16 GMT, John Salerno
<johnjsal@NOSPA Mgmail.comdecla imed the following in comp.lang.pytho n:
>

>I don't see this. The code works now, though. Maybe it was something
>carried over by pasting.

>
Here's a snippet from your original listing:
>

> nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
> nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
> nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
>);
>''')

That's correct, though, isn't it? Those quotes are the closing quotes of
the argument to executescript()

[John Machin]

Re: sqlite3 error

John Salerno wrote:

John Machin wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

CREATE TABLE Researchers (
researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,

A bit OT, but one answer to the "can you make a living with just
Python" question is "Yup, tool of choice for rummaging in and fixing
data that's been mangled by users cramming it into dodgy data models"
:-)

[snip]

>

(2) It's not apparent how you would use the first, last, and given
names columns, especially with two of them being "not null". Consider
how you would store e.g.:
J Edgar Hoover
DJ Delorie
Sukarno
35
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
Molnar Janos
Fatimah binte Rahman
Zhang Manyu

>
Not sure I follow you on some of these examples. In the case of J Edgar
Hoover, I would just put the full name for his first name, or if "J" is
entered, then just that, I suppose. Given name will be first name +
middle name(s). (I took most of this schema from a baseball database, so
maybe it's just something that worked better there.)

You sure to be using "last name" to mean "surname" in the sense of
unchanging family name e.g. John and Mary Smith are the children of
Fred Smith, who is the son of Joe Smith.

You would address a letter to Mary as "Dear Ms Smith", and in follow-on
paragraphs in (say) a news article might refer to her using only the
surname e.g. "Smith also announced ...".

The problems are (1) there are cultures that don't have the concept of
a surname, and if they do, it may not be the "last name" (2) the name
may consist of only one word (giving you problems with "not null") or
not even be a word.

DJ Delorie -- his "given name" *is* DJ
Sukarno -- one word name
35 -- some jurisdictions allow name to include (or consist solely of)
digits
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk -- surname is Cheung [Hong Kong romanisation]
Molnar Janos -- surname is Molnar
Fatimah binte Rahman -- no surname; daughter of person whose given name
is Rahman
Zhang Manyu -- surname is Zhang [pinyin romanisation]; same person as
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk

It gets better:

Iceland: Jon Bjornsson and Hildur Bjornsdottir are the children of
Bjorn Eiriksson.

Portuguese: Jose Carlos Fernandes [mothers's family name] Rodrigues
[fathers's family name]; first step in shortening gives Jose Carlos
Rodrigues -- no drama here, but compare with Spanish: Jose Carlos
Fernandez [father's family name] Rodriguez [mother's family name],
shortened to Jose Carlos Fernandez.

[parts of] Somalia, Ethiopia: [using English given-name words for
clarity] Tom Dick Harry and Janet Dick Harry are the children of Dick
Harry Fred, who is the son of Harry Fred Joe.

Vietnamese: Full name e.g. Nguyen Thi Hoa Dung -- I have seen this
recorded as last name = Nguyen (that's the family name; doing well so
far), but first name = Thi. Thi means "Ms" or "female". The "first
name" is actually Dung. Given the popularity of Nguyen as a family name
(about 50% !!) , the recorded information has narrowed the choice to
about 25% of the Vietnamese population :-(

Cheers,
John

[Paul Rubin]

Re: sqlite3 error

"John Machin" <sjmachin@lexic on.netwrites:

It gets better:
>
Iceland:...
Portuguese:...
[parts of] Somalia, Ethiopia:...
Vietnamese:...

You might add something about Arabic filionyms.

[Steve Holden]

Re: sqlite3 error

John Machin wrote:

John Salerno wrote:
>

>>John Machin wrote:
>>

>>>John Salerno wrote:
>>>
>>>>CREATE TABLE Researchers (
>>> researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
>>> birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
>>> nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
>>> nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
>>> nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
>>>
>>>A bit OT, but one answer to the "can you make a living with just
>>>Python" question is "Yup, tool of choice for rummaging in and fixing
>>>data that's been mangled by users cramming it into dodgy data models"
>>>:-)
>>>

>
[snip]
>

>>>(2) It's not apparent how you would use the first, last, and given
>>>names columns, especially with two of them being "not null". Consider
>>>how you would store e.g.:
>>>J Edgar Hoover
>>>DJ Delorie
>>>Sukarno
>>>35
>>>Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
>>>Molnar Janos
>>>Fatimah binte Rahman
>>>Zhang Manyu

>>
>>Not sure I follow you on some of these examples. In the case of J Edgar
>>Hoover, I would just put the full name for his first name, or if "J" is
>>entered, then just that, I suppose. Given name will be first name +
>>middle name(s). (I took most of this schema from a baseball database, so
>>maybe it's just something that worked better there.)

>
>
You sure to be using "last name" to mean "surname" in the sense of
unchanging family name e.g. John and Mary Smith are the children of
Fred Smith, who is the son of Joe Smith.
>
You would address a letter to Mary as "Dear Ms Smith", and in follow-on
paragraphs in (say) a news article might refer to her using only the
surname e.g. "Smith also announced ...".
>
The problems are (1) there are cultures that don't have the concept of
a surname, and if they do, it may not be the "last name" (2) the name
may consist of only one word (giving you problems with "not null") or
not even be a word.
>
DJ Delorie -- his "given name" *is* DJ
Sukarno -- one word name
35 -- some jurisdictions allow name to include (or consist solely of)
digits
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk -- surname is Cheung [Hong Kong romanisation]
Molnar Janos -- surname is Molnar
Fatimah binte Rahman -- no surname; daughter of person whose given name
is Rahman
Zhang Manyu -- surname is Zhang [pinyin romanisation]; same person as
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
>
It gets better:
>
Iceland: Jon Bjornsson and Hildur Bjornsdottir are the children of
Bjorn Eiriksson.
>
Portuguese: Jose Carlos Fernandes [mothers's family name] Rodrigues
[fathers's family name]; first step in shortening gives Jose Carlos
Rodrigues -- no drama here, but compare with Spanish: Jose Carlos
Fernandez [father's family name] Rodriguez [mother's family name],
shortened to Jose Carlos Fernandez.
>
[parts of] Somalia, Ethiopia: [using English given-name words for
clarity] Tom Dick Harry and Janet Dick Harry are the children of Dick
Harry Fred, who is the son of Harry Fred Joe.
>
Vietnamese: Full name e.g. Nguyen Thi Hoa Dung -- I have seen this
recorded as last name = Nguyen (that's the family name; doing well so
far), but first name = Thi. Thi means "Ms" or "female". The "first
name" is actually Dung. Given the popularity of Nguyen as a family name
(about 50% !!) , the recorded information has narrowed the choice to
about 25% of the Vietnamese population :-(
>

While I don't dispute any of this erudite display of esoteric
nomenclature wisdom the fact remains that many (predominantly Western)
databases do tend to use first and last name (in America often with the
addition of a one- or two-character "middle initial" field).

So, having distilled your knowledge to its essence could you please give
me some prescriptive advice about what I *should* do? :-)

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
Recent Ramblings http://del.icio.us/steve.holden

[John Machin]

Re: sqlite3 error


Steve Holden wrote:

John Machin wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

>John Machin wrote:
>
>>John Salerno wrote:
>>
>>>CREATE TABLE Researchers (
>> researcherID varchar(9) PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
>> birthYear int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
>> birthMonth int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>> birthDay int(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>> birthCountry varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
>> birthState char(2) DEFAULT NULL,
>> birthCity varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
>> nameFirst varchar(50) NOT NULL,
>> nameLast varchar(50) NOT NULL,
>> nameGiven varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
>>
>>A bit OT, but one answer to the "can you make a living with just
>>Python" question is "Yup, tool of choice for rummaging in and fixing
>>data that's been mangled by users cramming it into dodgy data models"
>>:-)
>>

[snip]

>>(2) It's not apparent how you would use the first, last, and given
>>names columns, especially with two of them being "not null". Consider
>>how you would store e.g.:
>>J Edgar Hoover
>>DJ Delorie
>>Sukarno
>>35
>>Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk
>>Molnar Janos
>>Fatimah binte Rahman
>>Zhang Manyu
>
>Not sure I follow you on some of these examples. In the case of J Edgar
>Hoover, I would just put the full name for his first name, or if "J" is
>entered, then just that, I suppose. Given name will be first name +
>middle name(s). (I took most of this schema from a baseball database, so
>maybe it's just something that worked better there.)

You sure to be using "last name" to mean "surname" in the sense of
unchanging family name e.g. John and Mary Smith are the children of
Fred Smith, who is the son of Joe Smith.

You would address a letter to Mary as "Dear Ms Smith", and in follow-on
paragraphs in (say) a news article might refer to her using only the
surname e.g. "Smith also announced ...".

The problems are (1) there are cultures that don't have the concept of
a surname, and if they do, it may not be the "last name" (2) the name
may consist of only one word (giving you problems with "not null") or
not even be a word.

DJ Delorie -- his "given name" *is* DJ
Sukarno -- one word name
35 -- some jurisdictions allow name to include (or consist solely of)
digits
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk -- surname is Cheung [Hong Kong romanisation]
Molnar Janos -- surname is Molnar
Fatimah binte Rahman -- no surname; daughter of person whose given name
is Rahman
Zhang Manyu -- surname is Zhang [pinyin romanisation]; same person as
Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk

It gets better:

Iceland: Jon Bjornsson and Hildur Bjornsdottir are the children of
Bjorn Eiriksson.

Portuguese: Jose Carlos Fernandes [mothers's family name] Rodrigues
[fathers's family name]; first step in shortening gives Jose Carlos
Rodrigues -- no drama here, but compare with Spanish: Jose Carlos
Fernandez [father's family name] Rodriguez [mother's family name],
shortened to Jose Carlos Fernandez.

[parts of] Somalia, Ethiopia: [using English given-name words for
clarity] Tom Dick Harry and Janet Dick Harry are the children of Dick
Harry Fred, who is the son of Harry Fred Joe.

Vietnamese: Full name e.g. Nguyen Thi Hoa Dung -- I have seen this
recorded as last name = Nguyen (that's the family name; doing well so
far), but first name = Thi. Thi means "Ms" or "female". The "first
name" is actually Dung. Given the popularity of Nguyen as a family name
(about 50% !!) , the recorded information has narrowed the choice to
about 25% of the Vietnamese population :-(

While I don't dispute any of this erudite display of esoteric
nomenclature wisdom the fact remains that many (predominantly Western)
databases do tend to use first and last name (in America often with the
addition of a one- or two-character "middle initial" field).
>
So, having distilled your knowledge to its essence could you please give
me some prescriptive advice about what I *should* do? :-)
>

Yes; the details would depend on the application (movie actor database,
factory payroll, pension fund, social security, homeland security, ...)
and should follow fairly naturally from a requirements analysis. The
main pre-requisite is for both the users and IT to get an attitude
transplant :-)

Cheers,
John

Cheers,
John

[John Salerno]

Re: sqlite3 error

John Machin wrote:

The problems are (1) there are cultures that don't have the concept of
a surname, and if they do, it may not be the "last name" (2) the name
may consist of only one word (giving you problems with "not null") or
not even be a word.
>
It gets better:
>
Iceland: Jon Bjornsson and Hildur Bjornsdottir are the children of
Bjorn Eiriksson
>
etc. etc.

Ok, you make me want to crawl under my desk and whimper until 5pm. :)

Fortunately my program is just a test to give me something to do, and
will only use the names of people already working here that happen to
(for the most part) fit into my model (although they *are* all foreign,
so it's good to keep these exceptions in mind.) And I guess it never
hurts to consider these things for future expansion either.

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Re: People's names (was Re: sqlite3 error)

In message <mailman.912.11 59494600.10491. python-list@python.org >, Steve
Holden wrote:

John Machin wrote:
>
[lots of explanation about peculiarities of people's names]
>
While I don't dispute any of this erudite display of esoteric
nomenclature wisdom the fact remains that many (predominantly Western)
databases do tend to use first and last name (in America often with the
addition of a one- or two-character "middle initial" field).

Just because most Western designers of databases do it wrong doesn't mean
that a) you should do it wrong, or b) they will continue to do it wrong
into the future, as increasing numbers of those designers come from Asian
and other non-Western backgrounds.

So, having distilled your knowledge to its essence could you please give
me some prescriptive advice about what I *should* do? :-)

Has anyone come up with a proper universal table design for storing people's
names?

Certainly "first name" and "last name" are the wrong column names to use. I
think "family name" and "given names" would be a good start. For the
Icelanders, Somalians and the Muslims, their father's name goes in
the "family name" field, which makes sense because all their siblings (of
the same sex, at least) would have the same value in this field.

I wonder if we need another "middle" field for holding the "bin/binte" part
(could also hold, e.g. "Van" for those names that use this).

There would also need to be a flag field to indicate the canonical ordering
for writing out the full name: e.g. family-name-first, given-names-first.
Do we need something else for the Vietnamese case?

[John Machin]

Re: People's names (was Re: sqlite3 error)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

In message <mailman.912.11 59494600.10491. python-list@python.org >, Steve
Holden wrote:
>

John Machin wrote:

[lots of explanation about peculiarities of people's names]

While I don't dispute any of this erudite display of esoteric
nomenclature wisdom the fact remains that many (predominantly Western)
databases do tend to use first and last name (in America often with the
addition of a one- or two-character "middle initial" field).

>
Just because most Western designers of databases do it wrong doesn't mean
that a) you should do it wrong, or b) they will continue to do it wrong
into the future, as increasing numbers of those designers come from Asian
and other non-Western backgrounds.

Unfortunately, lack of appreciation that different rules and customs
may apply on the other side of the county/state/national boundary is a
universal trait, not one restricted to Westerners.

>

So, having distilled your knowledge to its essence could you please give
me some prescriptive advice about what I *should* do? :-)

>
Has anyone come up with a proper universal table design for storing people's
names?
>
Certainly "first name" and "last name" are the wrong column names to use.I
think "family name" and "given names" would be a good start.

So far so good.

For the
Icelanders, Somalians and the Muslims, their father's name goes in
the "family name" field, which makes sense because all their siblings (of
the same sex, at least) would have the same value in this field.

Two problems so far:
(1) If you then assume that you should print the phone directory in
order of family name, that's not appropriate in some places e.g.
Iceland; neither is addressing Jon Jonsson as "Mr Jonsson", and BTW it
can be their mother's name e.g. if she has more fame or recognition
than their father.
(2) Arabic names: you may or may not have their father's name. You
might not even have the [usually only one] given name. For example: the
person who was known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: this means "father of
Musab, the man from Zarqa [a city in Jordan]". You may have the family
name as well as the father's and grandfather's given name. You can have
the occupation, honorifics, nicknames. For a brief overview, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_names

>
I wonder if we need another "middle" field for holding the "bin/binte" part
(could also hold, e.g. "Van" for those names that use this).

Not a good idea, IMHO. Consider "Nguyen Van Tran" vs 'Rembrandt van
Rijn". Would you peel the Da off Da Costa but not the D' off
D'Oliveiro? What do you do with the bod who fills in a form as Dermot
O'Sullivan one month and Diarmaid Ó Súilleabháin the next?

>
There would also need to be a flag field to indicate the canonical ordering
for writing out the full name: e.g. family-name-first, given-names-first.
Do we need something else for the Vietnamese case?

As I said before, it depends on the application. In some applications,
it will be preferable to capture, in one field, the whole name as
supplied by the person, together with clues like nationality and place
of birth that will help in parsing it later. However if all you want to
do is post out the electricity bill to an address that your
meter-reader has verified, then you can afford to be a little casual
with the name.

This is all a bit OT. Before we close the thread down, let me leave
you with one warning:
Beware of enthusiastic maintenance programmers on a mission to clean up
the dirty names in your database:
E.g. (1) "Karim bin Md" may not appreciate getting a letter addressed
to "Dr Karim Bin" (Md is an abbreviation of Muhammad).
E.g. (2) Billing job barfs on a customer who has no given names and no
family name. Inspection reveals that he is over-endowed in the title
department: "Mr Earl King".

Cheers,
John

[Steve Holden]

Re: People's names (was Re: sqlite3 error)

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

In message <mailman.912.11 59494600.10491. python-list@python.org >, Steve
Holden wrote:
>
>

>>John Machin wrote:
>>
>>[lots of explanation about peculiarities of people's names]
>>
>>While I don't dispute any of this erudite display of esoteric
>>nomenclatur e wisdom the fact remains that many (predominantly Western)
>>databases do tend to use first and last name (in America often with the
>>addition of a one- or two-character "middle initial" field).

>
>
Just because most Western designers of databases do it wrong doesn't mean
that a) you should do it wrong, or b) they will continue to do it wrong
into the future, as increasing numbers of those designers come from Asian
and other non-Western backgrounds.
>

I quite agree: my comment was really intended to highlight the fact that
most Western database designers (myself included) do tend to be quite
locale-centric. I haven't any experience with Eastern design, so can't
say whether the same holds true.

>

>>So, having distilled your knowledge to its essence could you please give
>>me some prescriptive advice about what I *should* do? :-)

>
>
Has anyone come up with a proper universal table design for storing people's
names?
>
Certainly "first name" and "last name" are the wrong column names to use. I
think "family name" and "given names" would be a good start. For the
Icelanders, Somalians and the Muslims, their father's name goes in
the "family name" field, which makes sense because all their siblings (of
the same sex, at least) would have the same value in this field.
>
I wonder if we need another "middle" field for holding the "bin/binte" part
(could also hold, e.g. "Van" for those names that use this).
>
There would also need to be a flag field to indicate the canonical ordering
for writing out the full name: e.g. family-name-first, given-names-first.
Do we need something else for the Vietnamese case?

You'd think some standards body would have worked on this, wouldn't you.
I couldn't think of a Google search string that would lead to such
information, though. Maybe other, more determined, readers can do better.

regards
Steve
--
Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119
Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com
Skype: holdenweb http://holdenweb.blogspot.com
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