Blank-Padded Comparisons

Oracle does not make blank-padded comparison for arguments to like clauses. However, when executed against a table on Adaptive Server, the same SQL statement fetches the row.

If a column c1 of type char(5) has a value “a” inserted into it, the following SQL statement does not return any rows if the table is on an Oracle database:

select...where c1 like "a"

Given the same setup, this SQL statement returns the row when the table is on either Adaptive Server or Oracle:

select...where c1 = "a"

When c1 = “a” is used, Oracle performs blank-padded comparisons.