Hmmm...as a European user of (often) US programs I get REALLY annoyed at programs forcing me to enter telephone numbers in a particular format, displaying the first n digits as the area code (UK numbers can have 3, 4 or 5 digits for area codes), refusing to allow me to enter +44 (or whatever)...or having to enter my post-code as a ZIP code (if I even can)...

...plus we have the added joy of our (UK) telephone codes changing format, length, etc., every couple of years - it's happening again in April '00 (can't wait)

However, it's probably more a decision based on your customer base - if you're mostly selling to one region you are right, you probably don't have to worry about it.

Ahhh..glad I've got that off my chest :-)

>The way I see it, the cases where I would need different formatting are the exceptions, and I can always strip the data and reformat in those situations. But the mere possibility of that situation arising is not enough to make me want to format in every other end use.
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>>You know, some of these responses have given me pause for thought and reconsideration. On one hand, storing the format marks means never having to worry about it again, OTOH, there have been some strong arguments for leaving data naked and doing the formatting at the UI level.
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>>>Technically, I agree. Practically, I disagree. In most cases, I will store tel, zip fields with formatting because then I can just drop the field on a report, or drag it onto a form and it will display correctly. Otherwise every end use of this field requires formatting. eeuw.
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>>>>I gotta agree with most of the other posts. Your data should be like pudding and take on the shape of whatever the UI dictates.
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>>>>>Hi Folks.
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>>>>>The "R" Format property. You know, the thing that applies a format mask to data as specified in the InputMask property. The Builders love it. I don't. Phone numbers, for example. If the data is stored as (999) 999-9999 and you use (999) 999-9999 as your InputMask and have R in the Format, you end up with a display that looks like "((99) 9) 99", or something to that effect.
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>>>>>Frankly, I like to store data as formatted so that I don't have to worry about formatting it from whatever front-end I get it from. So the "R" is worse than useless for me.
>>>>>
>>>>>What do y'all think?