NOT NULL CHECK (mycol !='') :good idea? bad idea?

From: Michael Moore <michaeljmoore(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: postgres list <pgsql-sql(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: NOT NULL CHECK (mycol !='') :good idea? bad idea?
Date: 2016-06-03 18:16:33
Message-ID: CACpWLjPX-_80aXcJFbk7wxZWKPTs2Fyeywe=6HmgorzV2U=n7A@mail.gmail.com
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In Oracle, a NOT NULL constraint on a table column of VARCHAR in essence
says: "You need to put at least 1 character for a value". There is no such
thing as a zero-length string in Oracle, it's either NULL or it has some
characters.

To make Postgres perform an equivalent column edit, I am considering
defining table columns like ... mycol VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL CHECK (mycol
!='')

Is there any drawback to this? Is there a better way to do it? Any
thoughts? how about ....
mycol VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL CHECK (length(mycol) > 0)
or even
mycol VARCHAR(20) CHECK (length(mycol) > 0)

tia,
Mike

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