Question

I have a table that saves some account limits like users. For most rows this value will be an integer. However I will also need to support storing unlimited (infinite) as a value. This might seem silly but is there a common integer value that represents unlimited (infinite)? I’d like to keep storing the values as integers.

Answer 1

• use zero
• use -1
• use null

I prefer null, unless the field is not nullable, then I prefer zero, unless zero is a valid limit, then I prefer -1, unless -1 is a valid value, in which case you need another field (say, a bit field) to signify ‘unlimited’.