Oracle-L: RE: Implicit Date conversion problem

From: Jamadagni, Rajendra <Rajendra.Jamadagni_at_espn.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 08:03:32 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.004F65BF.20021029080332@fatcity.com>

http://technet.oracle.com/docs/products/oracle9i/doc_library/release2/server .920/a96540/sql_elements2a.htm#54201

Look up for table 2-10 and then below the table look for 4th bullet ... that's where I found it out ...

At-least Tom you know my pain. but hey in this downturn economy along with saving money we are in a process of saving keystrokes (there-by saving electrons-electricity-company_bill-eventually_saving_company_money).

I have just about given up explaining this issue to developers and have asked them to open a tar with Oracle. They will believe it when OWS tells them "this is wrong", what I say doesn't matter.

Raj

Rajendra Jamadagni MIS, ESPN Inc. Rajendra dot Jamadagni at ESPN dot com
Any opinion expressed here is personal and doesn't reflect that of ESPN Inc.

QOTD: Any clod can have facts, but having an opinion is an art!

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 10:53 AM To: Jamadagni, Rajendra; 'ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com'

Raj,

you said:

"according to Oracle, when comparing a varchar2 to a date column, the string
does get converted to a date ... "

This has got to be wrong. If you compare a varchar2 column with a number, Oracle try's to convert the varchar2 to a number, and we end up with an
"invalid number" error. Oracle has not choice but to attempt to convert a
database column to a literal - it can *never* go in the other direction because it cannot make the correct assumption. At least I would not try and provide that service.

I would explain to the developers and the managers that this is the way it works. And it will always work correctly if they do explicit date conversion in their Sql. Once they begin coding this correctly, they will always be happy - it will always work consistently.

The manuals have been known to be wrong in the past, and if you and they have found the above quote in a manual, it is wrong. At least I have *never* seen Oracle act like this.

Hope this helps.

Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional

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Author: Jamadagni, Rajendra
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Received on Tue Oct 29 2002 - 10:03:32 CST