Are Blank String and String with only Space characters equal to each other? They should not be!!

I have a table called Table_1

Table_1
--
a varchar(10),
b varchar(20)

and Column a is the Primary Key.

INSERT INTO Table_1
(a ,b)
VALUES
('' , 'BLANK STRING')

INSERT INTO Table_1
(a ,b)
VALUES
(' ' ,'4 SPACES')

When i execute this Insertions, it inserts the First Record but on the Second one it gives Violation of Uniqueness

(1 row(s) affected)
Msg 2627, Level 14, State 1, Line 9
Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK_Table_1'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.Table_1'.
The statement has been terminated.

My Questions is that; HOW can a Blank String or a String with 4(or any number) space charcters in it can be EQUAL? In my opinion they should not be regarded as the same! Is there a solution to this issue? That's not the case in Oracle Database.

Thanks for your help!

Regards,
Cem

According to ANSI standards (or is it SQL Server's implementation of ANSI...), anyway, for sorting purposes, leading blanks are ignored. (And Primary Keys are 'sorted'...)

Try these two statements, the first will provide the 'right' answer, and the second will provide the 'real' answer.

SELECT len( (replicate( ' ', 4 )) )
SELECT datalength( (replicate( ' ', 4 )) )

|||

You should check the setting of SET ANSI_PADDING. If you want behavior such as you find in ORACLE, you will need SET ANSI_PADDING ON. That way trailing blanks will not be trimmed from your VARCHAR insert statements.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187403.aspx

Dan

April CTP superkey oddity

I've set up a table with a superkey composed of a uniqueidentifier column and a varchar column. The uniqueidentifier column is not set to be a row GUID. When I try to add a new row with a duplicate uniqueidentifier value but different varchar value, I am told it violates the IX uniqueness constraint. I can't figure out what's wrong with this since it looks valid to me. Thanks in advance for suggestions.

JoshJust an FYI- I dropped the table and recreated it as I did before and everything went as expected!

Josh

Appending Text to a SQL Text Data Type

I am trying to use a cursor to create a mass Text field with the results fro
m
the selections from a series of VarChar(8000) values. I know I need to use
UpdateText, but it only seems to store the 1st one it reads. Can anyone hel
p?
Here's my text:
Declare @.TriggerText nVarChar(4000)
Declare @.ptrval Binary(16)
Declare @.Offset Int
-- Create temporary table to hold Text field
Create Table #tempTrigger
(TextField Text NULL)
Insert Into #tempTrigger Select ''
-- Get Trigger "basis"
Declare curTriggerBasis Insensitive Cursor For
Select c.Text
From sysObjects o (nolock)
Inner Join sysComments c (nolock)
On o.ID = c.ID
Where o.Name = 'cttx_Customer'
Order By ColID
For Read Only
Open curTriggerBasis
Fetch Next From curTriggerBasis Into @.TriggerText
While @.@.Fetch_Status = 0
Begin
Select @.ptrval = TEXTPTR(TextField),
@.Offset = DataLength(TextField)
From #tempTrigger (nolock)
UpdateText #tempTrigger.TextField @.ptrval @.Offset 0 @.TriggerText
Fetch Next From curTriggerBasis Into @.TriggerText
End
Close curTriggerBasis
Deallocate curTriggerBasis
Select * From #tempTrigger (nolock)> but it only seems to store the 1st one it reads
How are you determining this? What does 'SELECT DATALENGTH(TextField) FROM
#tempTrigger' return?
Happy Holidays
Dan Guzman
SQL Server MVP
"bobnunny" <u17151@.uwe> wrote in message news:59ac1c8e96b9c@.uwe...
>I am trying to use a cursor to create a mass Text field with the results
>from
> the selections from a series of VarChar(8000) values. I know I need to
> use
> UpdateText, but it only seems to store the 1st one it reads. Can anyone
> help?
> Here's my text:
> Declare @.TriggerText nVarChar(4000)
> Declare @.ptrval Binary(16)
> Declare @.Offset Int
> -- Create temporary table to hold Text field
> Create Table #tempTrigger
> (TextField Text NULL)
> Insert Into #tempTrigger Select ''
> -- Get Trigger "basis"
> Declare curTriggerBasis Insensitive Cursor For
> Select c.Text
> From sysObjects o (nolock)
> Inner Join sysComments c (nolock)
> On o.ID = c.ID
> Where o.Name = 'cttx_Customer'
> Order By ColID
> For Read Only
> Open curTriggerBasis
> Fetch Next From curTriggerBasis Into @.TriggerText
> While @.@.Fetch_Status = 0
> Begin
> Select @.ptrval = TEXTPTR(TextField),
> @.Offset = DataLength(TextField)
> From #tempTrigger (nolock)
> UpdateText #tempTrigger.TextField @.ptrval @.Offset 0 @.TriggerText
> Fetch Next From curTriggerBasis Into @.TriggerText
> End
> Close curTriggerBasis
> Deallocate curTriggerBasis
> Select * From #tempTrigger (nolock)|||I've put Print statements in there to check this out. It shows Datalength a
s
4000 everytime except the last one. BUT, like an idiot I was checking the
loop so hard, but the Select statement at the end will only return the first
4000. Once I changed that to DataLength, it showed it had it all.
Thanx!
Dan Guzman wrote:
>How are you determining this? What does 'SELECT DATALENGTH(TextField) FRO
M
>#tempTrigger' return?
>
>[quoted text clipped - 36 lines]

Apostrophe in char and varchar columns

HI all,
When trying to insert text into a char or varchar column that contains an
apostrophe ' I get an error message
"the value you entered is not consistant with the datatype or length of the
colum"
I know the length is not a problem, and I'm sure that ' is a char value.
How do I deal with this.
I need to import text type date, not long less thatn 100 char, from anothe
database into an sql table
Thanks
RobertOk figured it out. Makes perfect sense
Thanks
"Robert Bravery" <me@.u.com> wrote in message
news:eBAeJKrLGHA.536@.TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> HI all,
> When trying to insert text into a char or varchar column that contains an
> apostrophe ' I get an error message
> "the value you entered is not consistant with the datatype or length of
the
> colum"
> I know the length is not a problem, and I'm sure that ' is a char value.
> How do I deal with this.
> I need to import text type date, not long less thatn 100 char, from anothe
> database into an sql table
> Thanks
> Robert
>