Re: DBD::Sybase returns blank character instead of empty string

Hello again,

I apologize for my previous email, which was both partially wrong
and also premature -- rtfm would have helped.

I had written:

> Notice: The Database really has an empty string, not a NULL value or any
> other weird thing.

And in fact, Sybase had really stored a string consisting of one blank
(space) character. Reading Sybase's ASE Reference (for ASE 12.5)
revealed that this is intentional:

They simply refuse to store empty strings and just prefer to convert
them to strings of one blank character. I must say that I seriously
consider discontinuing the use of their products -- or is someone going to
tell me that this weird behaviour conforms to the SQL standard?

What's more confusing:

select ... where Value = ""

and

select ... where Value = " "

both return the same set of identical rows (where ... is identical,
of course).

Sorry again,
Rainer
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rainer J. H. Brandt email: rjhb@xxxxxxx
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH web: www.bb-c.de
Kamberg 111 phone: +49 2448 919126
D 53940 Hellenthal mobile: +49 172 9593205


.

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