Re: Case insensitive queries

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, damorgan_at_x.washington.edu wrote:
> Galen Boyer wrote:
>

>> On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, forbrich_at_tyahoo.net wrote:
>>
>>>Daniel Morgan wrote:
>>>
>>>>What is it you think Oracle is doing under the covers to make
>>>>case insensitive queries possible? Give it some
>>>>thought. There is no other way to compare byte values than to
>>>>alter them. A switch in the init.ora does not change what is
>>>>happening.
>>>
>>>But if it's done at the DB level, the developers can correctly
>>>state that the performance issue is not theirs.  Thereby
>>>shedding their responsibility in the name of doing it 'at
>>>internet speed'.
>>>
>>>(Lousy design is never a possible source of problems.  Similar
>>>to 'security?  naw, no time now!  we'll do it later, maybe in
>>>production.  shouldn't have an impact.')
>> Please tell me any of this discussion has anything to do with
>> lousy design?  This "lousy design" mantra is something thrown
>> out by people to somehow let their argument have more merit.
>> Where is the lousy design in wanting Oracle to remove this
>> limitation?
>>

I see. You can't answer my question. In other threads you yell and scream about textbook designs, but you just gave a "textbook" answer. You have seen something or read about something and you apply that blindly to the next thing. You had nothing to back up your claim of "bad design" but it was one of the strongest statements in your answers.

> but I don't want to use it that way. So it would be preferable
> if you gave an example of somewhere that you think you need it
> and let us try to counter it.

(Wish you would have answered my earlier question to you)

A java developer came to me and said, no matter what the client sends in, I need to use it in a case-insensitive query.

I said, I will need to create either a function based index or a hidden single case version of that column. Would that work for you?

We are going to have lots of these and our application works against multiple databases. Does Oracle have the ability to toggle case-sensitivity before a query is executed?

Well, this is how I can solve it for you.

Yeah, I know, but this means I need to execute two different queries based on the desires of the client.

> The one thing I will say is that in 14+ years working with
> Oracle I have never required a case insensitive string
> comparison within an application except when dealing with data
> from upstream systems that had not been cleaned up on import.

Have you built an application in the last, say 5 years? Look at Oracle on Google. How do you think "daniEl MoRgan" brings back 7420 hits.

-- 
Galen Boyer