On Wed, Apr 24, 2013 at 8:47 AM, uwekeim <pcservice@...> wrote:

>
> >
> > in other words, before comparison, the shorter string is padded with
> > "pad-character" (usually a space) to the length of the longer string.
> >
> > So, it's not a bug, but a SQL-standards feature.
> >
>
> oops - okay, that's the explanation, although this behavior doesn't make
> sense to me...
>

You're looking a a single case of various numbers of space characters in a
column,
including none.. Consider this case instead. Suppose through a failure of
database
design, I have fields in two tables, both fields called first_name. One is
declared as
"CHAR[15]" and the other as VARCHAR[15]. Someone stores 'Ann' in each
field,
then tries to join the two tables on first_name. As you know, CHAR fields
are blank
filled to their full size, so the values are 'Ann ' and 'Ann'.
If trailing blanks are
significant, the two values don't match.

I suppose the SQL committee could have said something like "trailing blanks
are
ignored iff a value includes a non-blank" and satisfied both goals - yours
and mine -
but I don't really think that's an improvement.

Good luck,

Ann


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