Empty strings

From: DDS101 <dds101_at_digital-dispatch.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1998 14:41:40 -0800
Message-ID: <367988A4.6E1008FB@digital-dispatch.com>

We've recently started using Oracle and much to my surprise (and dismay!) I've just discovered that we don't seem to be able to store an empty string in a CHAR or a VARCHAR2 column. Any attempt to do so results in the empty string being converted into a NULL.

(To me a NULL is different from an empty string just as a NULL is different from the number 0. Being told I can't store an empty string in a VARCHAR2 column is as surprising as being told I can't store the number 0 in a NUMBER column.)

So, my questions are: Is the above true? And, if so, is there a "standard" way that users of Oracle deal with this issue? Our local DB guy doesn't want to store NULLs in the offending column. Do we have to store a "magic" (non-empty) string instead?

Any help or pointers to related links would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Mark Received on Thu Dec 17 1998 - 16:41:40 CST