Phone Number Columns in a Database

Question

In the last 3 companies I\'ve worked at, the phone number columns are of type varchar(n). The reason being that they might want to store extensions (ext. 333). But in every

Answer 1

one point with storing phone numbers is a leading 0.

eg: 01202 8765432

in an int column, the 0 will be stripped of, which makes the phone number invalid.

I would hazard a guess at the - being swapped for spaces is because they dont actually mean anything

eg: 123-456-789 = 123 456 789 = 123456789