yf110_at_vtn1.victoria.tc.ca (Malcolm Dew-Jones) wrote in message news:<3ee8b7d5_at_news.victoria.tc.ca>...
> Billy Verreynne (vslabs_at_onwe.co.za) wrote:
> : andrewst wrote:
>
> : > What you say above is true ... of the way Oracle treats the empty string
> : > '', i.e. as synonymous with NULL. However, just because Oracle does
> : > something a certain way, doesn't make it correct.
>
> : Blasphemer!
>
> : > Logically, '' is not the same as NULL, any more than 0 is the same as
> : > NULL for a NUMBER column. '' is a value, NULL is not.
>
> : Hey, you're not allowed to wear your pointy ears to the next Trekkie
> : Convention. Not when you make illogical statements like that.
>
> : Define what value is in between the quotes for ''.
>
> Define what value is in between the quotes for 'abcdefgh'
>
> -Either-
>
> It's not a single value, it's an ordered set of values.
>
> But, an ordered set of values with zero items exists and is still an
> ordered set of values, so if 'abcdefg' is a string then '' must also be a
> string.
>
> -OR-
>
> It's a single value, in which case it's clear that one attribute of
> the value is it's length.
>
> But if the length is an attributes, then '' is clearly the same kind of
> value that simply has the length attribute set to zero. Realizing that
> items with a value of zero are still the same kind of item is something
> that the ancient babylonians struggled with - 3000 years ago.
>
> -so-
>
> I would say that using '' as a null is merely an oracle convention.
Bowtie! http://groups.google.com/groups?q=null++author:celko&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&newwindow=1&selm=8tv2rl%24pvv%241%40nnrp1.deja.com&rnum=5
jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/06/11/222206.shtml?tid=111&tid=126
Received on Thu Jun 12 2003 - 16:54:33 CDT
