On Apr 16, 2004, at 5:51 PM, Marcus Boerger wrote:
Hello George,
thinking twice and rechecking it is a bit more complicated though.
"NVL" in oracle means "Null-VaLue" or beter 'NULL Value replacement'. We want to replace the non-existing situation with a predefined value which is slightly different.
Hence the name should be "NEL", "NEV" or "NEVAR" for "Non-Existing-Value-(Replacement)".
sorry i had to read my own mail to recognize this fact.
Well, oracle doens't really have a non-existing value, so in their language it's the same. The point of the suggestion was to re-use a familiar function name with the semantic meaning (since non-existent values == null in oracle, that's the best you get).
To beat a rather dead horse, you can also say it's Non-existing VaLue.
:)
George
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