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Timeline for SQL: empty string vs NULL value

Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5

23 events
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Aug 16, 2018 at 20:18 comment added Airn5475 If you must go the route of using a string...please, please, make sure that it is empty. For the sake of all developers, do not let a string with a space in it represent your unknown value. I beg you.
Sep 7, 2017 at 1:33 comment added Andy "am I right in assuming that using empty string for an unknown value is causing a database to "lie" about the facts?" if your business users don't care about unknown vs empty, does the lie even matter?
Sep 7, 2016 at 11:54 history tweeted twitter.com/StackProgrammer/status/773489647813091328
Aug 11, 2016 at 15:02 history protected gnat
Aug 11, 2016 at 14:54 answer added Tom Pažourek timeline score: -1
S Jan 24, 2014 at 4:43 history suggested Edward Brey
added null and string tags
Jan 24, 2014 at 2:34 review Suggested edits
S Jan 24, 2014 at 4:43
Jan 15, 2013 at 15:43 answer added Marcel timeline score: 2
Aug 8, 2012 at 9:18 answer added bendemes timeline score: 5
Sep 14, 2011 at 22:17 answer added spong timeline score: 5
Sep 14, 2011 at 21:30 answer added colinbashbash timeline score: 48
Mar 18, 2011 at 4:48 answer added ElGringoGrande timeline score: 1
Mar 18, 2011 at 4:16 answer added Walter Mitty timeline score: 6
Jan 4, 2011 at 8:46 vote accept Jacek Prucia
Dec 30, 2010 at 14:49 answer added Steven A. Lowe timeline score: 3
Dec 30, 2010 at 14:35 answer added Slawek timeline score: 1
Dec 30, 2010 at 13:12 comment added user281377 Dean: You are right about the char(1) example, but that's yet another WTF, since '' IS NULL evaluates to true in PL/SQL.
Dec 30, 2010 at 13:07 comment added Dean Harding @ammoQ: Oracle's treatment of zero-length strings is non-standard. Besides, '' even in Oracle, is not the same as NULL. For example, assigning a CHAR(1) column the value '' will result in ' ' (i.e. a space), not NULL. Besides, if Jacek was using Oracle, this question would likely not even come up :-)
Dec 30, 2010 at 13:05 answer added apoorv020 timeline score: 1
Dec 30, 2010 at 12:41 answer added Konstantin Petrukhnov timeline score: 6
Dec 30, 2010 at 12:29 comment added user281377 Are you aware that in Oracle, the empty string is NULL?
Dec 30, 2010 at 12:22 answer added Dean Harding timeline score: 89
Dec 30, 2010 at 12:10 history asked Jacek Prucia CC BY-SA 2.5