#61 DB script invocation logging is sometimes misleading

[Mark Martin]

Recently, while debugging a project, I spent time chasing data issues by following the web side log, e.g.

"bcbsma..arch_s_search_members @sub_ssn = null, @last_name = 'MA', @first_name = 'J', @user_id = 9999, @DOB = null, @client_id = 999, @alpha_prefix = null"

In fact, the parameter passed for "sub_ssn" was the empty string ('' or more precisely, String.Empty), NOT null. The logging shouldn't confuse the two, even if Sybase does...

Opinion
http://codebetter.com/blogs/steve.hebert/archive/2006/06/20/146610.aspx

Fact
http://infocenter.sybase.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.sybase.help.ase_15.0.blocks/html/blocks/blocks258.htm

And Oracle's product notes addressing this and THEIR take on Null ?= String.Empty:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/migration/kb/articles/239504.1.html

Expected behavior:

The above line should be emitted as
"bcbsma..arch_s_search_members @sub_ssn = '', @last_name = 'MA', @first_name = 'J', @user_id = 9999, @DOB = null, @client_id = 999, @alpha_prefix = null"

That's what was actually passed to the stored procedure.