Re: Informix limitations, should we be using Oracle?

John Carlson wrote: > On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 14:41:05 +0000, Paul Watson <paul@oninit.com> > wrote: > > >>If you cast null then it should work OK you need 9.x >> >>select null::INT > >>from systables; > > > > Same here: > > select null::char(1) > from systables I was wondering what the equivalent was in SE. In 4GL you used to be able to use a blank string, like "". I know Jonathan, I know, it was a bug.. :-) Anyway, that doesn't work in SQL, but strangely, (or not if it's related to the 4GL "feature") if you convert an empty string to a numeric value by adding any numeric value, the string gets converted to NULL along the way. Now NULL plus any value is... SELECT ""+0 AS col1 -- or ""+9999 or " "+0 or... FROM systables INTO TEMP mds ; SELECT COUNT(*) FROM mds WHERE col1 IS NULL; Well it does in SE version 7.24, so maybe it's been fixed now. ;-) ...Oh, maybe not, it also works in IDS 9.40. 8-) Personally, I wouldn't be inclined to use this method or expect it to be supported. Cheers, -- Mark. +----------------------------------------------------------+-----------+ | Mark D. Stock mailto:mdstock@MydasSolutions.com |//////// /| | Mydas Solutions Ltd http://MydasSolutions.com |///// / //| | +-----------------------------------+//// / ///| | |We value your comments, which have |/// / ////| | |been recorded and automatically |// / /////| | |emailed back to us for our records.|/ ////////| +----------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------+ sending to informix-list