Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 09:23:32 -0500
From: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Differentiate Between Zero-Length String and NULLColumn Values
Message-ID: <20070130142332.GA31905@phlogiston.dyndns.org>
References: <20070130131334.GD31676@phlogiston.dyndns.org>
	<45BF584F.A3DD.0030.0@indicator.be>
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On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 02:38:07PM +0100, Bart Degryse wrote:

> Andrew, I think you're wrong stating that Oracle would interpret
> NULL and empty string as equal. The Oracle databases I use (8, 9
> and 10) certainly make a distiction between both values. Maybe
> earlier versions did so, that I don't know.

Hmm.  Well, I'm not an Oracle guy, so I don't really know.  All I
know is that we occasionally get people coming from Oracle who are
surprised by this difference.  What I've been _told_ is that '' and
NULL are under some circumstances (maybe integers?) the same thing,
whereas of course ' ' and NULL are not.  But since I'm not an Oracle
user, people should feel free to ignore me :)

A


-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Everything that happens in the world happens at some place.
		--Jane Jacobs