4 Sep
2001
4 Sep
'01
3:42 p.m.
I don't know about other databases, but you can get the result you want in Oracle with the nvl function, by selecting nvl(optional_number, 0) from the database. If you couldn't control the replacement value and 0 had an exisiting meaning, I would think that disastrous. At 01:28 05/09/01 +1000, Zac Stevens wrote: <snip>
Still, if not the Principle of Least Surprise, it's certainly violating the Principle of Not Being a Tedius Pain :) It would be far more convenient for it to return '0' for a NULL in a Numeric-type column, '' when in a String-type column, and EOF for a Binary-type column. (If you see what I'm getting at)