Re: varchar truncation from 7.1 to 7.2

The SQL standard required the change.

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Jeff Davis wrote:
> I know that 7.2 started raising an error when a string is too long for a
> varchar, whereas 7.1 silently truncated it.
>
> My question is: why?
>
> I read some previous posts about it, and the solution seemed to be a per-table
> trigger to truncate the new value first (Thanks Jan).
>
> Now, I don't think it's a problem if the behavior was always that way. If
> every other database threw an error, that would also make sense (I am pretty
> sure that db2 silently truncates).
>
> However, it does seem to be a problem (albeit very minor) because it's (a) a
> change from previous releases and (b) not always helpful.
>
> If you send a query, and there is an obvious, sane, safe, predictable
> way to make it work, I think that's the correct course of action. Moreover,
> there really isn't a way for you to know that you've made an application
> programming error until it's in production anyway (with the current behavior
> or prior behavior), so I don't see how it helps you debug anything.
>
> Am I missing a strong gain here? Again, this is a really minor issue. Overall
> I'm really happy with 7.2.1 (which I just put on my production systems, in
> case you're curious what prompted this question).
>
> Thanks,
>     Jeff
>
>
>
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