RE: artificial values vs null

I missed this thread! One of our vendors circumvents NULLs by placing a = single zero ("0") in the 7-byte DATE columns when they mean NULL. The = only way I know of how to do this is thru an OCI call. Oracle has = acknowledged this as a bug, but the last I heard, they hadn't closed it = because so many people had designed systems to use it. Oracle did = however cause an error in the reporting of these columns thru their ODBC = driver. The MS Oracle ODBC driver reports the columns to be something = like "November 21, 1899". I forget the exact date, but it's not the = Smithsonian "zero date".

BTW, don't do this. It's just an example of what some have done...

Rich

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 9:00 AM Subject: RE: artificial values vs null

interesting idea ... and of course I have been following this thread = with
great interest :-)
I am not a seasoned DWH designer either, but this idea sounds strange to = me.
The "<" comparison operator does not know about this special meaning of "January 1, 1900"
and the GROUP BY operator is equally ignorant...

Is this approach meant to avoid nulls in the FK column in the fact = table?

Kind regards,
Lex.

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