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  4. Does NULL <> 'string'?

Does NULL <> 'string'?

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  • L Lost User

    And avoid "!=" in SQL :laugh:

    Richard DeemingR Offline
    Richard DeemingR Offline
    Richard Deeming
    wrote on last edited by
    #43

    Only if you're anal about standards-compliance. ;P

    sql - Should I use != or <> for not equal in TSQL? - Stack Overflow[^]:

    Databases that support both != and <>:

    • MySQL 5.1
    • PostgreSQL 8.3
    • SQLite
    • Oracle 10g
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005/2008/2012/2016
    • IBM Informix Dynamic Server 10
    • InterBase/Firebird
    • Apache Derby 10.6
    • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.0

    Databases that support the ANSI standard operator, exclusively:

    • IBM DB2 UDB 9.5
    • Microsoft Access 2010

    "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

    "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

    L 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • Richard DeemingR Richard Deeming

      Only if you're anal about standards-compliance. ;P

      sql - Should I use != or <> for not equal in TSQL? - Stack Overflow[^]:

      Databases that support both != and <>:

      • MySQL 5.1
      • PostgreSQL 8.3
      • SQLite
      • Oracle 10g
      • Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005/2008/2012/2016
      • IBM Informix Dynamic Server 10
      • InterBase/Firebird
      • Apache Derby 10.6
      • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.0

      Databases that support the ANSI standard operator, exclusively:

      • IBM DB2 UDB 9.5
      • Microsoft Access 2010

      "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

      L Offline
      L Offline
      Lost User
      wrote on last edited by
      #44

      What the hell... Thank you for the info. Unfortunatelly I have to work mostly with interbase (we are on the way to replace it by MSSQL)and with Interbase until now I thought "!=" is not possible. Made just a short test, and yes also IB accpets "!=" :-O :laugh: [Edit] BTW: Have some Problems to seriously translate "if you're anal compliance" :confused: :laugh:

      Richard DeemingR 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • L Lost User

        What the hell... Thank you for the info. Unfortunatelly I have to work mostly with interbase (we are on the way to replace it by MSSQL)and with Interbase until now I thought "!=" is not possible. Made just a short test, and yes also IB accpets "!=" :-O :laugh: [Edit] BTW: Have some Problems to seriously translate "if you're anal compliance" :confused: :laugh:

        Richard DeemingR Offline
        Richard DeemingR Offline
        Richard Deeming
        wrote on last edited by
        #45

        0x01AA wrote:

        BTW: Have some Problems to seriously translate "if you're anal about compliance"

        anal - Wiktionary[^] - definition #3: of a person, compulsive and stubborn, obsessed with neatness and accuracy Synonyms: fussy, pernickety, picky


        "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

        "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined" - Homer

        L 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • Richard DeemingR Richard Deeming

          0x01AA wrote:

          BTW: Have some Problems to seriously translate "if you're anal about compliance"

          anal - Wiktionary[^] - definition #3: of a person, compulsive and stubborn, obsessed with neatness and accuracy Synonyms: fussy, pernickety, picky


          "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

          L Offline
          L Offline
          Lost User
          wrote on last edited by
          #46

          Thank you for help me learning English. What such a insignifican word like "about" can change everything :laugh: Thank you Bruno

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          • C Chris Maunder

            You'd think so. Except in SQL We had a query:

            Select count(*)
            From TableOne

            which returned, say, 500,000 records. Next we added

            Select count(*)
            From TableOne
            Left Join TableTwo On TableTwo.TableTwoID = TableOne.TableTwoID
            Where TableTwo.TableTwoID is null or TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

            We're trying to find the number of records in TableOne which, when joined with TableTwo, either have no corresponding TableTwo row or the corresponding TableTwo row is not 'value'. TableTwo.StringColumn is nullable. The result? Adding the join resulted in 25K records. It should have been over 490K records. The issue?

            TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

            This comparison returns false if TableTwo.StringColumn is null. So one needs to use

            IsNull(TableTwo.StringColumn, '') <> 'value'

            to get the correct result.

            cheers Chris Maunder

            H Offline
            H Offline
            hpcoder2
            wrote on last edited by
            #47

            Actually, the same sort of thing happens in floating point arithmetic, in pretty much any language under the sun. The values NaN (yes, there's more than one type of NaN) always return false when compared with any other number. So both NaN==x and NaN != x are false. etc., etc. This has bitten me in the arse a number of times, and I work in C++.

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • C Chris Maunder

              You'd think so. Except in SQL We had a query:

              Select count(*)
              From TableOne

              which returned, say, 500,000 records. Next we added

              Select count(*)
              From TableOne
              Left Join TableTwo On TableTwo.TableTwoID = TableOne.TableTwoID
              Where TableTwo.TableTwoID is null or TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

              We're trying to find the number of records in TableOne which, when joined with TableTwo, either have no corresponding TableTwo row or the corresponding TableTwo row is not 'value'. TableTwo.StringColumn is nullable. The result? Adding the join resulted in 25K records. It should have been over 490K records. The issue?

              TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

              This comparison returns false if TableTwo.StringColumn is null. So one needs to use

              IsNull(TableTwo.StringColumn, '') <> 'value'

              to get the correct result.

              cheers Chris Maunder

              L Offline
              L Offline
              Lost User
              wrote on last edited by
              #48

              Chris Maunder wrote:

              to get the correct result.

              The other result was also correct, just not the one you wanted. The behaviour is logical. Your last example would be very VB-ish, where a "NULL" value is treated like an empty string. In the database-world, an empty value does not mean an empty string. ..and it is not something recent, is it? :p

              Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)

              C 1 Reply Last reply
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              • L Lost User

                Chris Maunder wrote:

                to get the correct result.

                The other result was also correct, just not the one you wanted. The behaviour is logical. Your last example would be very VB-ish, where a "NULL" value is treated like an empty string. In the database-world, an empty value does not mean an empty string. ..and it is not something recent, is it? :p

                Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)

                C Offline
                C Offline
                Chris Maunder
                wrote on last edited by
                #49

                Eddy Vluggen wrote:

                The other result was also correct, just not the one you wanted

                This is exactly why I love programming.

                cheers Chris Maunder

                T 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • N Nelek

                  Guys... this is not the soapbox

                  M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

                  T Offline
                  T Offline
                  TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #50

                  It's also not the lounge.

                  #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

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                  • C Chris Maunder

                    Eddy Vluggen wrote:

                    The other result was also correct, just not the one you wanted

                    This is exactly why I love programming.

                    cheers Chris Maunder

                    T Offline
                    T Offline
                    TheGreatAndPowerfulOz
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #51

                    My sarcasm meter just broke.

                    #SupportHeForShe Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun

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                    0
                    • L Lost User

                      Yes, and it is pretty correct. NULL is not defined and can therefore not be compared to a value. Also not for nuallable type in c#.

                      R Offline
                      R Offline
                      Rob Grainger
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #52

                      Exactly - in Codd's original work (which defined Relational Database Management Systems), this is referred to as null progagation. Interesting, in The Relational Model for Database Management Systems V2, he introduced two null values one indicates the value is unknown and inapplicable (like the null behaviour you described), and the other indicating the value is unknown and applicable (which would give the behaviour Chris was expecting). Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, no-one bothered pursuing any of the good ideas in there.

                      "If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • C Chris Maunder

                        You'd think so. Except in SQL We had a query:

                        Select count(*)
                        From TableOne

                        which returned, say, 500,000 records. Next we added

                        Select count(*)
                        From TableOne
                        Left Join TableTwo On TableTwo.TableTwoID = TableOne.TableTwoID
                        Where TableTwo.TableTwoID is null or TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                        We're trying to find the number of records in TableOne which, when joined with TableTwo, either have no corresponding TableTwo row or the corresponding TableTwo row is not 'value'. TableTwo.StringColumn is nullable. The result? Adding the join resulted in 25K records. It should have been over 490K records. The issue?

                        TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                        This comparison returns false if TableTwo.StringColumn is null. So one needs to use

                        IsNull(TableTwo.StringColumn, '') <> 'value'

                        to get the correct result.

                        cheers Chris Maunder

                        R Offline
                        R Offline
                        Rob Grainger
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #53

                        I prefer the idiom...

                        (TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value') or TableTwo.StringColumn is null

                        I find it a bit more readable (never really liked the name of the IsNull function).

                        "If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • C Chris Maunder

                          You'd think so. Except in SQL We had a query:

                          Select count(*)
                          From TableOne

                          which returned, say, 500,000 records. Next we added

                          Select count(*)
                          From TableOne
                          Left Join TableTwo On TableTwo.TableTwoID = TableOne.TableTwoID
                          Where TableTwo.TableTwoID is null or TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                          We're trying to find the number of records in TableOne which, when joined with TableTwo, either have no corresponding TableTwo row or the corresponding TableTwo row is not 'value'. TableTwo.StringColumn is nullable. The result? Adding the join resulted in 25K records. It should have been over 490K records. The issue?

                          TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                          This comparison returns false if TableTwo.StringColumn is null. So one needs to use

                          IsNull(TableTwo.StringColumn, '') <> 'value'

                          to get the correct result.

                          cheers Chris Maunder

                          L Offline
                          L Offline
                          Lost User
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #54

                          In the end I can feel with you. I just entered the trap with NULL values _one more again_ :^) :-D SELECT xyz FROM Tbl1 LEFT JOIN Tbl2 ON Tbl2.Tbl1_ID = Tbl1.ID WHERE Tbl1.IntValue <> Tbl2.IntValue Where in both tables NULL Values are allowed for the field IntValue. S*t happens :doh:

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • C Chris Maunder

                            You'd think so. Except in SQL We had a query:

                            Select count(*)
                            From TableOne

                            which returned, say, 500,000 records. Next we added

                            Select count(*)
                            From TableOne
                            Left Join TableTwo On TableTwo.TableTwoID = TableOne.TableTwoID
                            Where TableTwo.TableTwoID is null or TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                            We're trying to find the number of records in TableOne which, when joined with TableTwo, either have no corresponding TableTwo row or the corresponding TableTwo row is not 'value'. TableTwo.StringColumn is nullable. The result? Adding the join resulted in 25K records. It should have been over 490K records. The issue?

                            TableTwo.StringColumn <> 'value'

                            This comparison returns false if TableTwo.StringColumn is null. So one needs to use

                            IsNull(TableTwo.StringColumn, '') <> 'value'

                            to get the correct result.

                            cheers Chris Maunder

                            A Offline
                            A Offline
                            al3c
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #55

                            It's either col equals null meaning a field with no value or you've got an epmty string you can use

                            Select *
                            From Table
                            Where (col is null or col = '')

                            or IsNull method to find epty strngs and null values _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Alec programming[^] expert

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