Fowler, Jeff wrote:
Hello All,
Not trying to be antagonistic, but I'm curious to know how many of you agree with Darren's sentiments on this issue. To restate briefly, ANSI SQL-92 specifies that when comparing two character fields, trailing spaces should be ignored.
My $0.02.
If we are ignoring trailing spaces, then by definition:
' ' = ''
and for that matter:
' ' = ' '
whereas
'xxxxxxxxxx' <> 'xxx'
Therefore, from the standpoint of arbitrary text,
A may or may not actually be identical to B when A = B
I don't consider that type of result to be predicable and therefore
would respectfully state that the standard is a potential source of bugs.
What could be useful is a function:
SELECT * FROM FOO WHERE TRIM(BAR) = TRIM(:bar)
or even a shortcut function along the lines of:
SELECT * FROM FOO WHERE TEXT_EQUIVALENT(BAR, :bar)
However, in my opinion, the operator '=' is better reserved as defining
strict equality.
John
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