Oracle considers empty strings to be NULL while SQL Server does not - how is this best handled?

Question

I have to write a component that re-creates SQL Server tables (structure and data) in an Oracle database. This component also has to take new data entered into the Oracle d

Answer 1

Its nasty and could have unexpected side effects.. but you could just insert "chr(0)" rather than ''.

drop table x

drop table x succeeded.
create table x ( id number, my_varchar varchar2(10))

create table succeeded.
insert into x values (1, chr(0))

1 rows inserted
insert into x values (2, null)

1 rows inserted
select id,length(my_varchar) from x

ID                     LENGTH(MY_VARCHAR)     
---------------------- ---------------------- 
1                      1                      
2                                             

2 rows selected

select * from x where my_varchar is not null

ID                     MY_VARCHAR 
---------------------- ---------- 
1