How's about applications written in ancient awful 4GLs like PowerHouse that do not handle variable length fields (aka "columns") in their own files, and therefore do not directly support them in relational DBs either?
Did I mention that this application also RELIES on the OCI bug that allows a date column to contain a zero (as opposed to the zero-date) that can't be done thru normal SQL? SELECT TO_CHAR(lastused,'YYYY') FROM mytables; TO_CHAR( --------- 2003 0000 0000 2003 2002 Hmmmm...I forgot about that in testing our 9i upgrade... Rich Rich Jesse System/Database Administrator [EMAIL PROTECTED] Quad/Tech Inc, Sussex, WI USA -----Original Message----- Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 10:35 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Wednesday, December 10, 2003, 11:09:27 AM, Gene Gurevich ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: GG> Someone told me that Oracle is planning to retire char GG> variable and therefore they need to be replaced by GG> varchar2. Has anyone heard anything about it? I've not heard anything like this. I'm skeptical that it's true. The ANSI standard defines a fixed-length type analogous to CHAR, so phasing out CHAR would seem to take Oracle in a direction *away* from the standard, and that seems out-of-character. Lately, Oracle seems to have emphasized compliance with the SQL standard. Would it even make sense to dispense with CHAR? I admit, I've never found it too useful, but I'm sure there are applications that use it. Any phase-out would surely need to take place over a very long period of time. What good reasons might an application have to use and depend on CHAR variables? Best regards, Jonathan Gennick --- Brighten the corner where you are -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Jesse, Rich 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).