Re: OCTET_LENGTH is wrong

Tom Lane writes:

> What
> I am trying to point out is that the spec is so vague that it's not
> clear what the correct answer is.

I guess the authors of SQL92 never imagined someone would question what
"value of S" means. In SQL99 they included it:

SQL 99 Part 1, 4.4.3.2.

A value of character type is a string (sequence) of characters
drawn from some character repertoire.

Just to be sure...

SQL 99 Part 1, 3.1 q)

q) sequence: An ordered collection of objects that are not
necessarily distinct.

I don't have a set theory text available, but I think this should give a
fair indication that the number of bits in the value of S is the sum of
the bits in each individual character (which is in turn vaguely defined
elsewhere in SQL99) -- at least in Euclidean memory architectures.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net