Also, there is a known intentional bug where blanks (spaces?) can be
inserted into the 7-byte date column via OCI. It sucks. I wish Ora Corp
would fix it, if they haven't already...
I stand/sit/kneel corrected -- it's zero-filled and not spaces:
I don't know if this still bug still "works", but according to AskTom:
...it's no longer documented. And while not easily accessible, Oracle still
serves up 7.3 docs:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/pdf/A32546_1.pdf
...which on page 3-15, displays the binary format of the DATE datatype,
which it says does not go through internal consistency checks.
Greeeeaaaat. Why would we want a silly thing like that on our DB?
Sorry for the tangent. Included for completeness. Or "complete mess", as
it may be...
Enjoy!
Rich -- [TeamT]
Disclaimer: Did you know your last name is an adverb?