RE: MS Access vs IS NULL (was Re: [BUGS] Bug in SQL functions that use a NULL parameter directly)

I don't have Office 2000, but I can confirm Access 97 generates such
queries. The query-builder doesn't generate the 'key = NULL' query, but the
use of the Forms interface does.

Mike Mascari
mascarm(at)mascari(dot)com

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Lane [SMTP:tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us]
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2001 2:00 PM
To: Stephan Szabo
Cc: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: [HACKERS] MS Access vs IS NULL (was Re: [BUGS] Bug in SQL
functions that use a NULL parameter directly)

Stephan Szabo <sszabo(at)megazone23(dot)bigpanda(dot)com> writes:
> Because of Access's brokenness, the parser or some other layer of the
> code "fixes" explicit = NULL (ie, in the actually query string) into
> IS NULL which is the correct way to check for nulls.
> Because your original query was = $1, it doesn't do the mangling of the
> SQL to change into IS NULL when $1 is NULL. The fact that we do that
> conversion at all actually breaks spec a little bit but we have little
> choice with broken clients.

It seems to me that we heard awhile ago that Access no longer generates
these non-spec-compliant queries --- ie, it does say IS NULL now rather
than the other thing. If so, it seems to me that we ought to remove the
parser's = NULL hack, so that we have spec-compliant NULL behavior.

Anyone recall anything about that? A quick search of my archives didn't
turn up the discussion that I thought I remembered.

regards, tom lane