In a table called **vehicles, a column named number_of_wheels would currently have unit - i.e. unitless, which has the implication that its values get parsed as floats, even though they are clearly integers by nature.
Here we propose to introduce a new unit indicator int, to be interpreted as, please parse this column's values as integers.
Why?
- Better semantics
- Improved memory efficiency
- Likely slight gain in parsing time performance
Integer quantities don't typically need a physical unit, so we wouldn't be sacrificing any information by occupying the unit field with the int indicator.
In a table called
**vehicles, a column namednumber_of_wheelswould currently have unit-i.e. unitless, which has the implication that its values get parsed as floats, even though they are clearly integers by nature.Here we propose to introduce a new unit indicator
int, to be interpreted as, please parse this column's values as integers.Why?
Integer quantities don't typically need a physical unit, so we wouldn't be sacrificing any information by occupying the unit field with the
intindicator.