🚀 go-pugleaf

news.borland.com wrote:
>
> Regardless, this is the server's responsibility. Why is BDP enforcing
> this in client side code? And why only unidirectionally? i.e. only on
> SELECT not on UPDATE.

I do agree that if the server stores trailing blanks you enter then you 
should also be able to select them back. After checking a bit more I realize 
I need to modify my statement about the difference a little as well. The 
difference is that, with char, the database will *pad* anything you enter to 
the defined length - i.e. will add trailing blanks. With varchar it won't, 
however you can still include trailing blanks yourself, they're just treated 
as any other character. Caveat is that each product may still have slightly 
different rules about this, but this is the most common AFAIK.

> I cannot alter the tables to use CHAR, project manager won't allow
> it. This is a show stopper for me. As I mentioned in another post I
> am using WHERE clauses for concurrency/synchonization. Its just not
> going to work if I can't GET what is actually on the DB.?! I wonder
> if theres any chance of getting this fixed?

I've looked in QC and don't see anything specific about this, but please do 
enter something there in this area:
http://qc.codegear.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?da=4572

Are the fields always being padded to the defined field length, or could 
there be *some* trailing blanks but still with a total string length less 
than the max defined field length? If always padded fully, then the 
application could pad out what it gets after the select. In the latter case 
though there doesn't appear to be any good work around.

Perhaps others here using Oracle might be able to suggest something.

> I could do trimming locally on all strings before any UPDATE, and
> then fix all the existing data, and hope trailing spaces never find
> their way in. or maybe load my WHERE clause up with trim() statements
> to trim server side values... but I dont like it.. better to start
> porting to ODP or MS data providers I think.

Personally, I do tend to trim such fields, or if I fail to do so, am happy 
to get them back trimmed, so for me, I'm curious as to why the trailing 
blanks are are actually important (not a criticism, I just can't imagine a 
situation where I would ever actually want trailing blanks, so I'm curious).

Oh, and could you change your posting name from "news.borland.com" to 
something else? Thanks.
-- 
Wayne Niddery - Winwright, Inc (www.winwright.ca)
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding,
when it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by
minding other people's business." - Eric Hoffer