I've been asked a very odd question about "empty strings" in Oracle. The individual is running the following PL/SQL anonymous block: DECLARE c NUMBER; col_cnt INTEGER; rec_tab DBMS_SQL.DESC_TAB; BEGIN DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Testing the datatype of an empty string:'); c := DBMS_SQL.OPEN_CURSOR; DBMS_SQL.PARSE(c, 'SELECT '''' as empty_string FROM dual', DBMS_SQL.NATIVE); DBMS_SQL.DESCRIBE_COLUMNS(c, col_cnt, rec_tab); DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('max length = ' || rec_tab(1).col_max_len); DBMS_SQL.CLOSE_CURSOR(c); END; / In all but one database, that belongs to a client, the result in 0 as follows: Testing the datatype of an empty string: max length = 0 PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. But on the clients system it returns: Testing the datatype of an empty string: max length = 32 PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. Anyone ever see this kind of behavior? It violates just about all of the documentation out there. Env: Oracle 10.2.0.1.0 windows client Oracle 11.1.0.7.0 on Linux with TDE. And yes I have run it against a system that we have TDE on as well. Can't figure this one out. Richard Goulet Senior Oracle DBA/Na Team Leader -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l