While working with HANA Studio
I recently noticed that a zero or empty string value appears to be null when converted to a date.
In the result it looks exactly like a null value, but it definitely is and behaves as a normal (NOT NULL) value.
Although it is quite obvious to me now in a simple set up, it did really trow me off.
Does anybody know how prevent zero dates from appearing as null values ?
I know explicitly converting to CHAR would do the job, but I would like to keep the date datatype.
Thanks, Scott
The SQL below shows what I mean.
select distinct * from (
SELECT TO_DATE(NULL) as DATE_COL FROM DUMMY -- a real null value
UNION
SELECT TO_DATE(0) as DATE_COL FROM DUMMY -- looks like null in the result
);