Rtrim seems not to work as expected

From: TurkBear <john.greco_at_dot.state.mn.us>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 09:32:01 -0500
Message-ID: <carpjvos065evbop9qo7bmmpng3cqjoltl@4ax.com>

Details:
Oracle 8.1.7.4
SqlPlus 9.2
W2K Advanced Server

I am confused ( not a rare thing) , because I thought I had done this kind of thing before: Create a CSV spool file from the database..

Set colsep to ','
set heading, feedback, etc off
got the following:( employee numbers deleted for security - names are public data.

select rtrim(empl_nm),empl_nbr from hr_public where rownum < 9;

Lambert,Ronald Paul                               ,00000000                     
Hopkins,Ruth Eleanor                              ,00000000                        
Coulianos,Theodore T                              ,00000000                      
Clemen,Jacqueline Barbara                         ,00000000                         
Martinez Jr,Bartolo                               ,00000000                 
Conocchioli,Victor Renald                         ,00000000                       
Church,Philip C                                   ,00000000                      
Crabbe,Victor Emmanuel Kweimensah                 ,00000000                     



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Why is it still allocating 50 spaces ( the field is a varchar2(50) ) even though I specified RTRIM?

What am I missing?

Thanks, Received on Fri Aug 15 2003 - 09:32:01 CDT