NULL versus empty string

From: David Wall <d.wall_at_computer.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 17:20:57 -0700
Message-ID: <KcOj9.2$Yy5.392@news03.micron.net>

What's the apparent rationale for Oracle treating an empty string and a NULL value as the same? I have a NOT NULL VARCHAR2 field, and I cannot enter an empty string since it rejects it as being null. However, null in other databases means that the attribute is not set, not that it's just empty. Most programming languages understand the difference between "" (an empty string) and null/0, meaning nothing is set.

Is there a comparable feature in Oracle that I can set that prevents it from being NULL, but will allow an empty string in a VARCHAR2?

Thanks,
David Received on Mon Sep 23 2002 - 19:20:57 CDT