Difference between Null and Space

l.nethaji · Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:40 am

Hi,

Could any one explain between Null, Space and Blank

How it is stored in cobol and DB2.

Thanks

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2010 10:11 am

you really refuse to read any manuals.

cobol does not store anything, it is a programming language, not a storage medium.

NULL is a db2 concept- only belongs to db2 - means there is no value for a column. the row contains an additional column - a null indicator.
additional information can be found in the DB2 UDB for z/OS V8 Application Programming and SQL Guide.

space and blank refer to the same thing. ebcdic value x'40'; ascii value x'20'. has nothing to do with cobol or db2 - it is the internal representation of a character - ebcdic for IBM mainframes, ascii for PCs.
additional information can be found in the enterprise cobol programmers guide as well as this link to different tables defining the ebcdic, ascii, or unicode representation of characters; included are all binary values.