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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-2212?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#action_12536362
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Øystein Grøvlen commented on DERBY-2212:
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I do not see how changing the existing create unique index command to create an
index which allows multiple null values, will create severe backward
compatibility issues. The new index would be less restrictive than the
existing index implementation, so all operations that succeed on the current
index should also succeed on with the new implementation.
I see that applications can no longer rely on an unique index to ensure that
only a single null value (but not two) are inserted, but I doubt that such
needs are very common.
Have I overlooked some compatibility issues here?
> Add "Unique where not null" to create index
> -------------------------------------------
>
> Key: DERBY-2212
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-2212
> Project: Derby
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: SQL
> Affects Versions: 10.2.1.6
> Reporter: Oleksandr Alesinskyy
> Assignee: Anurag Shekhar
> Attachments: derby-2212preview.diff, derby-2212preview2.diff
>
>
> Derby prohibits creation of unique constraints on nullable colums (as well if
> only some columns in the constraint list are nullable) and treat nulls in
> unique indexes as normal values (i.e. only one row with null values in
> indexed columns may be inserted into the table). This bahavior is very
> restrictive, does not completely comply with SQL standards (both letter and
> intent) as well as with business needs and intending meaning of NULL values
> (2 null values are not considered as equal, this comparision shall return
> NULL, and for selection criteria boolean null is treated as FALSE).
> This behavior, as far as I can see, is modelled after DB2 (and differs from
> behavior of most other major databases, like SyBase, Oracle, etc.).
> But even DB2 provide some means to alleviate these restrictions, namely
> "UNIQUE WHERE NOT NULL" clause for CREATE INDEX statement.
> It will be very good if such "UNIQUE WHERE NOT NULL" clause will be
> introduced in Derby.
> Regards,
> Oleksandr Alesinskyy
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