Re: Is This the varchar2 ZLS Issue?

Arto Viitanen wrote:

> Tony Andrews wrote:
>

>> All correct - for Oracle.  But note that the ANSI standard is that the
>> empty string is NOT null, and "where '' = ''" should always be TRUE.
>> This Oracle anomaly is a trap for those used to other DBMSs that honour
>> the ANSI standard on this point.

First of all, thank you to Mark for the response and all for the discussion.

Perhaps my original example shows a possibility. The entity/table in question is a work order/request table. A row represents a request or order for maintenance related work to be performed by tradespeople. Depending on the nature of the request, the cost of the work may have to be recovered from the client. If so, a debit account is entered in the wo_acct_no column or left blank. The designers that developed this particular DB have the value where wo_acct_no is blank as null.

I know from discussions I've read on other groups that many of the folks who are stringent about relational theory proscribe to never leaving a column value as null. What would one do for a default value, then, for a varchar2 where information can be left out?

-- 
Tim   http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
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