unexpected result concatenating simple strings in Sybase SQL

Question

I'm getting unexpected results with a very simple bit of SQL, on Sybase.

declare @mystring char(30)

select @mystring = 'abc'

select 'mystring = ' + @mystring

select @mystring = @mystring + 'xyz'

select 'mystring = ' + @mystring

This returns:

mystring = abc                           
mystring = abc   

Why doesn't the last select return 'abcxyz' ?

Thanks

Bob

Answer 1

I suspect that this is because you have declared @mystring as char(30) and All CHAR values are blank padded up to max-length

Declaring it as varchar(30) will do the trick :

declare @mystring varchar(30)

select @mystring = 'abc' 

select 'mystring = ' + @mystring

SELECT @mystring = @mystring + 'xyz'

select 'mystring = ' + @mystring