Re: Nulls get converted to 0 problem

On Wed, 4 Jun 2003 terry@ashtonwoodshomes.com wrote:

> Oracle *incorrectly* interprets blank (empty) strings as NULL.  They are NOT
> the same.  A string of zero characters is a string nonetheless.  A NULL is
> "the absence of value", which equals nothing (theoretically not even another
> NULL).

If you're testing a value, you're testing to see if there's something in
there or not - what difference does it make if the variable contains 0, ""
or NULL?

Why not adhere to the practices inherent (and thus anticipated by
developers) in other languages (C comes to mind) where 0, NULL and "" are
equivalent?

Cheers!

--
Jon Earle

SAVE FARSCAPE http://www.savefarscape.com/