family_relatives/family_photo table

I don't really understand why we have to have a (birthyear, integer),
AND a (birthday, date). Doesn't date already have year in it? The
same with item_date and item_year in the family_photo table.

Thanks.
Shan Shan

-- Shan Shan Huang, February 25, 2000

Answers

The year field is used when you don't know the exact month and day. Sure you could use Jan 1, 2000 to mean "any time during the year 2000", but then how do you distinguish between photos that really were taken on Jan 1, 2000? You'd need an extra column, so you may as well have a year column.

-- Andrew Grumet, February 25, 2000