However, you still have to worry about malformations, such as phone numbers that aren't 7 or 10 digits. Often times, people will want to have the area code somewhere else, too. *shrugs*

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We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

However, you still have to worry about malformations, such as phone numbers that aren't 7 or 10 digits.

So every database has numbers only within a single country? Not like any database I've ever used. I even thought about not filtering out leading plusses, but didn't do so, because I think this was homework anyway - and there should still be a challenge.

As for 7 or 10 digits, I had no idea about how other countries have their telephone numbers, and think I should not guess.

The fix: check length.

U28geW91IGNhbiBhbGwgcm90MTMgY
W5kIHBhY2soKS4gQnV0IGRvIHlvdS
ByZWNvZ25pc2UgQmFzZTY0IHdoZW4
geW91IHNlZSBpdD8gIC0tIEp1ZXJk

Juerd you're showing your europeanism... :-)

So every database has numbers only within a single country? Not like any database I've ever used.

Dont forget that ALL of North America (and the Bahamas) uses the same country code (1) and even more unlike Europe they use a standardized number format (3-3-4) _and_ they use extensions (which Germany for example does not).

I even thought about not filtering out leading plusses

Most North Americans dont know what the plus would mean anyway. (heh)

The fix: check length.

Unfortunately that doesnt work, the extension can be practically any number you like...

Now you know how I felt when I first got to Europe... Confused. (And lets not even talk about different dial tones and signals, I still get confused sometimes if it ringing or not....)

:-)

Yves / DeMerphq
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Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.

The 555 area code is a well-known area code that appears only in Hollywood movies and other fiction stuff. There is even a web page about that: http://home.earthlink.net/~mthyen/

So, if you want to "sanitize" a piece of code containing phone numbers (for privacy reasons and to fight spam... er telemarketing), you replace these by phone numbers from the 555-area.

Yet, maybe Sevrin could have said 555-1234-5678 or 555-2002-0408 :-)

update

I have forgotten the following example. In Mac Perl, Power and Ease (published by Prime Time Freeware http://www.ptf.com/), both authors (Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor) give their phone numbers:

$phone{"Vicki"} = "555-1234";
$phone{"Chris"} = "555-4321"; 

Another update. Sevrin, may be you could look at some of the modules you get in http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&query=phone