Should I store telephone numbers as strings or integers? [duplicate]

Question

I'm trying to decide between storing a phone number as a string or an int. Any ideas?

Answer 1

For any situation like these, think of : will I have to calculate anything with that value? If that doesn't make any sense, you should use a string. In that case, there's no logical case where you'd use the telephone number as a number, so use a string.

Answer 2

I recommend using a string since that gives you more flexibility when it comes to formatting and non numeric characters like extension etc.

Answer 3

I would suggest using String - aside from anything else, otherwise you won't be able to store leading zeroes. You definitely shouldn't use int (too small) float or double (too much risk of data loss); long or BigInteger could be appropriate (aside from the leading zeroes problem), but frankly I'd go with String. That way you can also store whatever dashes or spaces the user has entered to make it easier to remember the number, if you want to.

Reference: What's the right way to represent phone numbers?

Answer 4

I highly recommend you use a string for this.

If you are going to validate phone number input then you can use the regex lib's matcher and pattern to make sure a phone number was entered in the correct format.