Message-ID: <45BF8B02.1050607@polimetrix.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:14:26 -0800
From: Geoff Tolley <geoff@polimetrix.com>
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To: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Differentiate Between Zero-Length String and NULLColumn
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Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> AFAIK they don't accept the latter any more than we do.  But again,
> I'm an Oracle ignoramous.  I _do_ know that people of my acquaintance
> who have historically only developed against Oracle have given me
> queries with things like 
> 
> 	value = ''
> 
> in it, and been surprised.  Or at least, I think it's like that.  I
> do recall hearing a lot about how stupid Postgres was because it
> didn't like something that worked "perfectly well" on Oracle, which I
> was assured was the most SQL-compliant system on the planet. 
> Happily, I no longer work with any of those people :)

At my last job I used Oracle 8i and 9i (standard editions), and I very 
definitely remember the pain of it interpreting the empty string as a 
NULL (especially relevant when input needed trimming).

- Geoff