Re: So what's null then if it's not nothing?

From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:05:17 +0100
Message-ID: <4388334c$0$24373$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>

David Cressey wrote:
> Jon Heggland wrote:
>

>>My question is this:
>>
>>You say the empty string is the same as "no value at all", and say we
>>should call this concept of "no value at all" NULL for other data types.
>>Now, the empty string is a perfectly normal string. You can do string
>>operations on it: concatenate it, find its substring, find its length
>>and so on. For an integer variable that is NULL, it is very different.
>>You cannot do integer operations on it; you cannot add it to another
>>integer, or multiply it, for example.

>
>
> As I comented a couple of weeks ago,
>
> A || EMPTY == EMPTY || A == A for every string A
>
> That makes EMPTY a pretty interesting string, from my point of view. I
> wouldn't want to confuse it with NULL any more than I'd want to confuse the
> integer zero with NULL.
>
> My comment drew no response. I'm not about to draw any inferences from
> that absence of a response.

Warnocked, eh? http://mar.anomy.net/entry/2003/07/20/21.18.32/ Let me unwarnock you: nothing to add (iow brilliant).

:-) Received on Sat Nov 26 2005 - 04:05:17 CST