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From: dxs@dbrus.Unify.Com (Dale R. Shaver)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: UNIFY RPT bug concatenating strings
Keywords: UNIFY U2000 RPT
Message-ID: <1p2ytsu@Unify.Com>
Date: 20 Nov 90 20:06:07 GMT
References: <321@cti1.UUCP>
Sender: news@Unify.Com (news admin)
Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA
Lines: 77

In article <321@cti1.UUCP> kmeek@cti1.UUCP (Kevin Meek) writes:
>When concatenating strings together if any of the fields in the input
>are null then resulting output string is set to null as well.
>
>For example.
>with input section like the following 
>
>input
>   fname [string 2],
>   lname [string 4],
>   room [string 3]
>
>And Data like the following 
>
>John|Smith|100
>John|Smith|
>John||103
>|Smith|102
>
>the following set statement will set result_str to null for all
>but the first line of input.
>
>  set result_str to fname + lname + room
>
>Basically If any of the variables are null when concatenating strings
>the result will be null as well.
>
>I am using RPT that came with Accell/IDS for our 3B2/600
>The output of RPT -version is below
>
>Database Version: 34
>Revision:         1.1.1.4.8
>Nap Option:       POLL
>Machine:          ATT 3B2
>Operating System: att600g 3.2.2 3 3B2
>(SM:22 DB:1 CM:10 FM:26 LM:17 TM:16 CL:3)

This is ACCELL/SQL, not ACCELL/IDS.  This issue is known here at Unify,
but the problem is not quite as Kevin has stated.

It is true that RPT will set a value to NULL if one or more of the 
elements is NULL.  This is true whether the values are strings, 
numerics, amounts, etc.  However, this is the way in which the RPT
product works; in other words, a feature.

However, the bug here is that strings of length zero are being 
interpreted as NULL when they should not be.  Given the input that 
Kevin supplied:

	John|Smith|100
	John|Smith|
	John||103
	|Smith|102

The variable result_str should successively be:

	JohnSmith100
	JohnSmith
	John103
	Smith102

If the input was, however:

	John|Smith|100
	John|Smith|*
	John|*|103
	*|Smith|102

Then the concatenation of the last three strings will be NULL,
and is correct.  The "strings of length zero being interpreted
as NULL" problem has been identified and fixed in our 1.2 
version of ACCELL/SQL.

Dale Shaver, Technical Support Engineer         Phone: (916) 922-1177, x 733
Unify Corporation, Sacramento, California         Fax: (916) 920-5306
dxs@unify.Com  or  {{ucdavis,csun,lll-crg}!csusac,pyramid,sequent}!unify!dxs
"Would you please continue the petty bickering; I find it quite intriguing"