> What number does '' represent?
'No response' value...
> Does that mean a string of '/2' should equal your number divided by two?
right, but it is never required.
> If not, why not?
because I use it to GROUP BY values.
> Who is providing an empty string where you've asked for a number, and
> why not trap this error (or store a NULL)?
You are certainly right. My problem concerns the compatibility of code
among postgres 8 and 7.2 that I wanted to maintain. The existing code
(data analysis) exploits the particularity that the null ('') becomes
0 (ok, no comment :) ) logically wrong but practically perfect!
[...CAST CODE...]
Thank you for the explicit-cast code, but I want reproduce it in
'database level' so I don't use explicit cast but IMPLICIT; everytime
updating integer fields with '' values it cast to (0 or NULL).
Best regards, Mauro