Thanks for all replies. Right now I think I can afford just make the column NULL, so that's what I'll do. But still, something doesn't feel quite right with empty string == NULL :).
RDB On Friday 18 July 2003 03:22 pm, Mercadante, Thomas F wrote: > Reuben, > > While I agree that an empty string is not logically equal to a null, Oracle > interprets an empty string in INSERT and UPDATE statements as a NULL. So > you really do not have a choice here. If you have the need to insert an > empty string into a column, you have two choices: > > - Define a character to represent an empty string and insert that character > (pretty dumb suggestion) > > - Change the table to allow null values in that column, and perform the > INSERT as your example showed. > > Good Luck and hope these helped. > > Tom Mercadante > Oracle Certified Professional > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Reuben D. Budiardja [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 4:10 PM > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L > Subject: Empty String is interpreted as NULL > > > Hello all, > Suppose I have this table > > SQL> DESC FRUIT > Name Null? Type > ----------------------------------------- -------- > ORANGE NOT NULL VARCHAR2(10) > APPLE NOT NULL VARCHAR2(10) > > If I do this insert: > > SQL> / > INSERT INTO FRUIT VALUES ('hello', '') > * > ERROR at line 1: > ORA-01400: cannot insert NULL into ("LIGHTCONE"."FRUIT"."APPLE") > > I got an error cannot insert NULL. But, what if I meant is to insert empty > string '' ? Certainly empty string is NOT equal to NULL values. > > So how do I get around this? > > Thanks in advance for any help. > > > Reuben D. Budiardja -- Reuben D. Budiardja Department of Physics and Astronomy The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN ------------------------------------------------- /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign against HTML \ / email and proprietary format X attachments. / \ ------------------------------------------------- Have you been used by Microsoft today? Choose your life. Choose freedom. Choose LINUX. ------------------------------------------------- -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Reuben D. Budiardja INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
