String and date comparisons in SQR can be a little tricky
at times. For example, trailing spaces are significant; 'Y' != 'Y '.
To avoid subtle bugs, SQR programmers get into the habit of using RTRIM on string
variables. And then there are nulls, blank values, and
empty strings. How do they relate to each other?
SQR provides two built-in functions that can help with this.
ISNULL() returns 1 (which can be interpreted
as "true") if its argument is a null value. In PeopleSoft
systems this would normally apply to dates only, since
character fields are defined as NOT NULL and therefore
cannot contain null values. At least in the Oracle version,
an empty string ('', no spaces) is handled by SQR the same way as
a null value.
The other function is ISBLANK(). It returns 1 if
a value is null, an empty string, or a string containing
blank spaces and/or whitespace characters (tabs, carriage
returns and linefeeds).
let $x = ' ' || chr(9) || chr(13) || chr(10) || ' '
if isblank($x)
show 'Whitespace is blank' ! This is printed
end-if
Note that two values can both pass the ISBLANK() test
but still be unequal, and that a value could pass ISBLANK()
but not ISNULL().
