Oracle PL/SQL string compare issue

Question

I have the following Oracle PL/SQL codes that may be rusty from you guys perspective:

 DECLARE
 str1  varchar2(4000);
 str2  varchar2(4000);
 BEGIN
   str1:         


        

Answer 1

I compare strings using = and not <>. I've found out that in this context = seems to work in more reasonable fashion than <>. I have specified that two empty (or NULL) strings are equal. The real implementation returns PL/SQL boolean, but here I changed that to pls_integer (0 is false and 1 is true) to be able easily demonstrate the function.

create or replace function is_equal(a in varchar2, b in varchar2)
return pls_integer as
begin
  if a is null and b is null then
    return 1;
  end if;

  if a = b then
    return 1;
  end if;

  return 0;
end;
/
show errors

begin
  /* Prints 0 */
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('AAA', 'BBB'));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('AAA', null));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal(null, 'BBB'));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('AAA', ''));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('', 'BBB'));

  /* Prints 1 */
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal(null, null));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal(null, ''));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('', ''));
  dbms_output.put_line(is_equal('AAA', 'AAA'));
end;
/