What will be output?

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Home » Article Discussions » Article Discussions by Author » Discuss content posted by Sunil Chandurkar » What will be output?

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What will be output?

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Sunil Chandurkar

Posted Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:02 PM

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item What will be output?

Post #889502

Posted Wednesday, March 24, 2010 9:03 PM

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Thanks for the Question.

Jason AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
I have given a name to my pain...
MCM SQL Server 2008

SQL RNNR

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Post #889503

Posted Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:39 PM

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thanks

Smile

... its a good interview question.

Post #889532

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:30 AM

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Thanks good question Smile

Smile

. For info rmation if we write question like this

declare @a int
declare @b varchar(2)
set @a = 10
set @b = ' '+@a +' '+ 2+' '
select @a +' '+ @b

then also output will be same.

Post #889578

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:01 AM

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Good question, but unfortunately the explanation is not entirely correct. Especially this part is very misleading:

Also the preceding space is not considered while performing the operation.

Let's look in detail what happens to set @b = ' '+@a + 2. Since all operators are the same, evaluation order is left to right. So the first partial expression to evaluate is ' '+@a. This mixes two datatypes: ' ' is varchar(1), and @a is int. Order of precedence dictates conversion of varchar to int, and ' ' is converted to the value 0 (run SELECT CAST(' ' AS int); if you don't believe me). Since @a is set to 10, the result of this partial expression is 0 + 10, or 10; still types as int.

The next step is to evaluate (' '+@a) + 2 (parentheses added to emphasize evaluation order). We have already seen that (' '+@a) is equal to the integer value 10, so this is now reduced to 10 + 2.

As you have seen, there is no leading space to be considered anywhere. However, even if there was, the words "is not considered" is misleading. I think we would all agree that converting the values '5', ' 5' and ' 5 ' to integer should all result in the value 5 - not because we expect the leading and trailing spaces to be "not considered", but because considering them or not is irrelevant, as they have no impact on the interpretation of the string as a number.

Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP
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Post #889588

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:04 AM

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ziangij (3/24/2010)

thanks

Smile

... its a good interview question.

I would not be too happy with these things being asked in an interview. My answer would be that mixing data types like this and taking a dependency hit on implied evaluation order and implicit conversion rules should not be done in production code.

Code like this would get a red mark from me if I caught it in code review.

Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP
Visit my SQL Server blog: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/hugo_kornelis

Post #889589

Bob Cullen-434885

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 2:55 AM

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I would certainly agree with Hugo - this just smells like bad practice if it ends up in production code. OK, the question is fine as an academic exercise, but just because you can do something like this doesn't mean you should, IMHO.
btw - I got it wrong - probably because my style of coding doesn't give me enough practice at this kind of dubious T-SQL Wink

Wink

Post #889611

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 3:23 AM

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Hugo Kornelis (3/25/2010)

' ' is converted to the value 0 (run SELECT CAST(' ' AS int); if you don't believe me).

This is very interesting because ISNUMERIC(' ') returns 0.
On the one hand, SQL Server doesn't consider whitespaces as numeric values; on the other hand, it converts whitespaces to zero integer values. This is a little bit strange Smile

Smile

Post #889627

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 4:37 AM

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The answer is 22

Post #889652

Sunil Chandurkar

Posted Thursday, March 25, 2010 5:09 AM

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Thanks Hugo! your explaination is very helpful. also thanks for pointing out the misleading pharse. in future i can now be more careful for writing any stuff on SSC

Post #889666

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