Tony Foiani writes:
> >>>>> "Hans-J" == Hans-J Krause <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> Hans-J> A database *never* should accept an insert of an empty string
> Hans-J> in a not null column - otherwise what for should a
> Hans-J> not-null-check to be set?
>
> If you said "Oracle database", I'd agree. (And, given the rest of
> your reply, you're obviously thinking about Oracle databases.)
> However, it's entirely reasonable for a database to distinguish
> between zero-length strings, and true nulls -- just as Perl does (''
> is not the same as undef!)
I believe that SQL-92 mandates that a non-null string be at least one
character in length.
Hence trying to store '' will result in ' ' being stored in the DB
(for varchar columns - fixed length columns will pad with spaces to
the appropriate width).
Certainly Sybase (and I presume MS-SQL) behaves this way.
Michael
--
Michael Peppler - Data Migrations Inc. - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.mbay.net/~mpeppler - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
International Sybase User Group - http://www.isug.com
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