Bart, I agree. Non existant should equal to non existant, especially in
database querying. If I want a record that is null, I should be able to ask
for foo=NULL, as for all the others foo=1, etc... I followed the Nan thread
myself, but stayed out of it, since it confused me more that it enlightened
me. I guess it's how you interpret it.
We are able to set columns to NULL with set foo = NULL, though how can
non-existant value be assigned to anything? It seems like when the standard
was created, pleaceholders where not on their mind at that time, though I
would definitelly agree with any DB vendor that goes beyond the ANSI SQL and
allows this syntax.
Ilya
-----Original Message-----
From: Bart Lateur
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 10/23/01 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: = NULL vs. IS NULL
On Tue, 23 Oct 2001 12:35:57 -0500, Stephen Clouse wrote:
>This is not Oracle, but ANSI-standard behavior. NULL represents the
absence or
>non-existence of a value. A non-existent value cannot be equal to
anything. So
>this is the correct behavior. I personally don't think DBI should muck
with
>proper behavior.
My personal opinion is to disagree. To me, NULL means "empty". It is not
the same as a zero length string. But empty is empty, thus NULL=NULL.
Nitpicking that NULL != NULL, is only making our life harder.
Last week, there was a similar discussion going on, on the Perl6 mailing
lists, with regards to NaN (Not A Number). Is NaN==Nan, or NaN!=NaN?
--
Bart.
