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

I've written an explanation on how Oracle handles null values on my blog a while ago. Check it here: http://www.psinke.nl/blog/hello-world/ and let me know if you have any more questions. If you have data from a source with empty values and you must convert to an Oracle database where columns are NOT NULL, there are 2 things you can do:

• remove the not null constraint from the Oracle column
• Check for each individual column if it's acceptable to place a ' ' or 0 or dummy date in the column in order to be able to save your data.