Left Outer Join and Timestamps

SettValleyConsulting · Thu May 08, 2008 4:43 am

My understanding, based on a document from IBM, is that where I have a Left Outer join and a row in the 'Left' dataset does not find a match in the 'Right' dataset, any nullable columns from the right dataset will be nulled.

But this does not seem to be the case for timestamps. I have a logical test for a null timestamp and it fails in the above scenario. The nullable timestamp column actually seems to be filled with '*****' s where no row was found on the right dataset.

Looks like I am going to have to put a flag in the Right dataset and test for its value after the join.

Anyone else encountered this behaviour?

DS_FocusGroup · Post by **DS_FocusGroup** » Thu May 08, 2008 4:48 am

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Thu May 08, 2008 5:06 am

Where are you checking the value? If in a view or peek I think it uses the *s to show a non-displayable value. To be 100% certain I'd dump that to a database nullable column and check the value there.