5. Text / String

A text or string data type can hold any alphanumeric character including text, numbers and symbols.

The data can be pure text or a combination of text, numbers and symbols.

Examples of text or string data types in use:

  • Name

Joe Bloggs

  • Address

101, Any Street

That Town

TR34 9RT

  • Telephone Number

01234 567890

  • Car Registration

EA05 NXR

  • Car Colour

Blue

NOTE: people often assume that a telephone number would be stored as an 'integer' data type. After all, they do look like numbers don't they! But think about it ...

Telephone numbers need to be stored as a text/string data type because they often begin with a 0 and if they were stored as an integer then the leading zero may not be stored.

The other reason is that you are never likely to want to add or multiply telephone numbers so there is no reason to store it as an integer data type.

 

challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you

Click on this link: String Data Type