From owner-pgsql-general@hub.org Fri Oct 9 18:22:09 1998 Received: from hub.org (majordom@hub.org [209.47.148.200]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id SAA04220 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:22:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id SAA26960; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:18:29 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-general@hub.org) Received: by hub.org (TLB v0.10a (1.23 tibbs 1997/01/09 00:29:32)); Fri, 09 Oct 1998 18:18:07 +0000 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id SAA26917 for pgsql-general-outgoing; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:18:04 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org) X-Authentication-Warning: hub.org: majordom set sender to owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org using -f Received: from gecko.statsol.com (gecko.statsol.com [198.11.51.133]) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA26904 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:17:46 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from statsol@statsol.com) Received: from gecko (gecko [198.11.51.133]) by gecko.statsol.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) with SMTP id SAA00557 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:18:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:18:00 -0400 (EDT) From: Steve Doliov X-Sender: statsol@gecko To: pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Making NULLs visible. Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org Precedence: bulk Status: RO On Fri, 9 Oct 1998, Bruce Momjian wrote: > [Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...] > > > Yes, \ always outputs as \\, excepts someone changed it last week, and I > > > am requesting a reversal. Do you like the \N if it is unique? > > > > Well, it's certainly clear, but could be confused with \n (newline). Can we > > have \0 instead? > > Yes, but it is uppercase. \0 looks like an octal number to me, and I > think we even output octals sometimes, don't we? > my first suggestion may have been hare-brained, but why not just make the specifics of the output user-configurable. So if the user chooses \0, so be it, if the user chooses \N so be it, if the user likes NULL so be it. but the option would only have one value per database at any given point in time. so database x could use \N on tuesday and NULL on wednesday, but database x could never have two references to the characters(s) used to represent a null value. steve From owner-pgsql-general@hub.org Sun Oct 11 17:31:08 1998 Received: from renoir.op.net (root@renoir.op.net [209.152.193.4]) by candle.pha.pa.us (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id RAA20043 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 17:31:02 -0400 (EDT) Received: from hub.org (majordom@hub.org [209.47.148.200]) by renoir.op.net (o1/$ Revision: 1.18 $) with ESMTP id RAA03069 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 17:10:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id QAA10856; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:57:34 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-general@hub.org) Received: by hub.org (TLB v0.10a (1.23 tibbs 1997/01/09 00:29:32)); Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:53:35 +0000 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id QAA10393 for pgsql-general-outgoing; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:53:34 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org) X-Authentication-Warning: hub.org: majordom set sender to owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org using -f Received: from mail1.panix.com (mail1.panix.com [166.84.0.212]) by hub.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id QAA10378 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:53:28 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from tomg@admin.nrnet.org) Received: from mailhost.nrnet.org (root@mailhost.nrnet.org [166.84.192.39]) by mail1.panix.com (8.8.8/8.8.8/PanixM1.3) with ESMTP id QAA16311 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:53:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from admin.nrnet.org (uucp@localhost) by mailhost.nrnet.org (8.8.7/8.8.4) with UUCP id QAA16345 for pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:28:47 -0400 Received: from localhost (tomg@localhost) by admin.nrnet.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA11569 for ; Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:28:41 -0400 Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:28:41 -0400 (EDT) From: Thomas Good To: pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Making NULLs visible. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org Precedence: bulk Status: RO Watching all this go by...as a guy who has to move alot of data from legacy dbs to postgres, I've gotten used to \N being a null. My vote, if I were allowed to cast one, would be to have one null and that would be the COPY command null. I have no difficulty distinguishing a null from a newline... At the pgsql command prompt I would find seeing \N rather reassuring. I've seen alot of these little guys. ---------- Sisters of Charity Medical Center ---------- Department of Psychiatry ---- Thomas Good Coordinator, North Richmond C.M.H.C. Information Systems 75 Vanderbilt Ave, Quarters 8 Phone: 718-354-5528 Staten Island, NY 10304 Fax: 718-354-5056