The answer to life, the universe and prime numbers

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The answer to life, the universe and prime numbers

Eirikur Eiriksson

SSC Guru

Points: 182882
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February 25, 2015 at 8:19 pm

#295569

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February 26, 2015 at 4:54 am

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Neil Burton SSC-Insane Points: 22919 More actions · Answer 1

Nice question Eirikur. That was one of those where I knew the answer as soon as I saw the title but I still had to check because my Sci-Fi knowledge is much broader than my SQL Server knowledge and I didn't want to get cocky 🙂

On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
—Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

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Toreador SSChampion Points: 11358 More actions · Answer 2

The explanation is wrong, it's nothing to do with 'unassigned characters' (whatever they are).

The variable is declared as VARCHAR, which defaults to varchar(1). The calculation results in -51, which is too long to fit into this variable, so it puts in a '*'.

Hany Helmy SSChampion Points: 13921 More actions · Answer 3

Not sure about this, had to run the code, never encountered such case before, so it is interesting question, thanx.

Thanks & Best Regards,
Hany Helmy
SQL Server Database Consultant

Shadab Shah SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4759 More actions · Answer 4

So Experts, which is the correct explanation. Either given by Eirikur Eiriksson or Toreador.

Toreador SSChampion Points: 11358 More actions · Answer 5

Try it out. You'll get the same result if you have

DECLARE @ VARCHAR = 10

or the following will return 45 (the ascii for '-')

DECLARE @ VARCHAR(3) = 1952 + 03 + 11 - 2001 - 05 - 11;

SELECT ASCII(@)

Dazzabigman Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 522 More actions · Answer 6

I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but doing a bit of playing I have to agree with Toreador. If you change the code to this:

DECLARE @ VARCHAR(3) = 1952 + 03 + 11 - 2001 - 05 - 11;

SELECT ASCII(@) AS [the answer to life, the universe and prime numbers];

you get an answer of 45 which is the ascii code for "-".

Eirikur Eiriksson SSC Guru Points: 182882 More actions · Answer 7

In the explanation I used the term unassigned for the lack of a better one as the value of the variable is neither truncated nor is it null.

😎

Umer Akram SSC-Insane Points: 22209 More actions · Answer 8

hmmmm .... it can also be named as Theory of Everything 😛

nice question and thanks for sharing Eirikur.

djj SSCoach Points: 18831 More actions · Answer 9

Toreador (2/26/2015)
The explanation is wrong, it's nothing to do with 'unassigned characters' (whatever they are).
The variable is declared as VARCHAR, which defaults to varchar(1). The calculation results in -51, which is too long to fit into this variable, so it puts in a '*'.

Thanks, I had thought VARCHAR defaulted to 50 and could not figure why the answer was not 45.

Ed Wagner SSC Guru Points: 287024 More actions · Answer 10

djj (2/26/2015)
Toreador (2/26/2015)
The explanation is wrong, it's nothing to do with 'unassigned characters' (whatever they are).
The variable is declared as VARCHAR, which defaults to varchar(1). The calculation results in -51, which is too long to fit into this variable, so it puts in a '*'.
Thanks, I had thought VARCHAR defaulted to 50 and could not figure why the answer was not 45.

When declared as a variable, I believe the default length is still 1. When used in a CONVERT function, it's 30.

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Ed Wagner SSC Guru Points: 287024 More actions · Answer 11

Oh yeah...nice question, Erikur. I knew the answer without doing any math before even looking at the answers, but I still checked out the code to make sure. 😉

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