Re: x = NULL - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Magnus Hagander
Subject Re: x = NULL
Date
Msg-id 81124B76C0CF364EBAC6CD213ABEDEF701AACA@ARGON.edu.sollentuna.se
Whole thread Raw
In response to x = NULL  (Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>)
List pgsql-hackers
> > The x = NULL hack keeps biting people.  Innocent people 
> should not be 
> > exposed to incorrect behaviour because of (supposed) MS Access 
> > breakage. I strongly urge that we do one of the following:
> >
> > 1) Provide a tunable knob to turn this on (cf. KSQO)
> >
> > 2) Confine this to the ODBC driver somehow (which could be done via 
> > #1)
> >
> > Actually, last time we discussed this there was some 
> confusion whether 
> > Access actually had the bug in question.  That might be 
> worth figuring 
> > out.
> >
> 
> A while back I tested Oracle and MSSQL7 for this -- neither 
> support it. See: http://fts.postgresql.org/db/mw/msg.html?mid=1021527
> 
> I just checked MS Access 2000 -- it also returns no records 
> on x = NULL versus the correct answer with x IS NULL, at 
> least for a simple query. IIRC, someone mentioned that the 
> original issue was limited to the use of filtered forms in 
> Access, or something like that. But ISTM, that if neither 
> Oracle nor even MSSQL support the syntax, then PostgreSQL 
> should not either.

MSSQL supports =NULL syntax if you set ANSI_NULLS=OFF (can be set per
connection, and yuo can also specify which is default for a certain
database or installation).
I beleive that ANSI_NULLS=OFF was default in SQL Server <= 6.5, and
ANSI_NULLS=ON are default in >= 7.0.

And yes, if you create a Query with Access, it uses IS NULL / IS NOT
NULL. The issue was with filtered forms only.

//Magnus


pgsql-hackers by date:

Previous
From: "Marc G. Fournier"
Date:
Subject: Re: Beta timing
Next
From: Peter Eisentraut
Date:
Subject: Re: syslog by default?