Re: NULL values or Zero in numeric fields?
From: Gary Myers <101355.3556_at_CompuServe.COM>
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <49qb8u$rjl$2_at_mhadg.production.compuserve.com>#1/1
Date: 1995/12/02
Message-ID: <49qb8u$rjl$2_at_mhadg.production.compuserve.com>#1/1
Regarding NULLs and zero length strings. There's mention in one of the Oracle 7 books that this may change in future, and that to be ready for it users hsould be differentiating between NULL and ''. There's not that many situations where a zero length string would be valid except as a form of NULL value. However the TRANSLATE function is one example where to get rid of a character (eg a space), you have to include a dummy translation character (eg TRANSLATE(FIELD,'& ','&') since a '' as the second string is treated as null, and a null in a function gives a null result.
-- Gary Myers, Analyst/Programmer, Kaisha Technology, West of EnglandReceived on Sat Dec 02 1995 - 00:00:00 CET