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Archive for December, 2008

When is a nested table column null?

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Somebody posted a comment that asked how you could test whether a nested table column is null. The NVL didn’t work because it doesn’t support the SQL data type.

I added how you could do it to an earlier blog post on joining non-collection row data to collection columns. The added entry shows you how to check whether a nested table column is null, empty, or populated. It’s a quick example that uses the same scalar collection of strings previously covered in that example.

Written by maclochlainn

December 24th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Posted in Oracle,sql

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Excel 2008 missing more of Excel 2007

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I remember when the Mac version of the office suite was like the Windows version. It’s so disappointing to find more shortfalls between the two. Here is a dialog that appears in Excel 2008 when you try to open an Excel 2007 workbook that includes the powerful new table components:

A year after the release of Excel 2007, and Microsoft didn’t include structured references, Excel tables, or table styles … What were they thinking about up in Redmond? Were they thinking that they should release something less on a Mac to sell Windows Vista? It couldn’t be that, could it?

Written by maclochlainn

December 4th, 2008 at 11:58 pm