Scott Coleman (12/7/2009)
The LEN() function ignores trailing spaces, comparing the strings doesn't actually ignore trailing spaces but it pads the shorter string with spaces. The answer's the same either way.
The QoD does not include any string comparisons, just their respective lengths using the len function, the one ignoring the trailing spaces. This is true that ANSI specs call for right-padding the shorter of the 2 strings to compare with spaces until both have the equal length. Then the algorithm comparing the two kicks in. This make the string 'hello' and 'hello ' equal and the word hello right-padded with tab character (ascii code 9) smaller than the word hello itself, because to compare them the trailing space is added to the shorter and the ascii code for space (hex 20 or 32 decimal) is bigger. This might look counter intuitive (how can a longer string with the same base be smaller) but this is by design.
Oleg