Both sides of OR are evaluated in 12.4 WHERE clause when the first is TRUE

After upgrading to OpenEdge 12.4, expressions are being evaluated on the right side of a WHERE clause with an OR which were not previously evaluated because the left side of the OR evaluates to true.

Mar 18, 2022
Knowledge

Title

URL Name

both-sides-of-or-are-evaluated-in-12-4-where-clause-when-the-first-is-true

Article Number

000212693

Environment

Product: OpenEdge Version: 12.4 OS: All Supported Platforms

Question/Problem Description

The following query is no longer short-circuiting the evaluation on the right side of the OR in 12.4.

It used to work in previous versions.

DEFINE VARIABLE cKey AS CHARACTER   NO-UNDO INIT “value”.

/* work for IF clause */
IF cKey = “value” OR INTEGER(cKey) = 0 THEN
    MESSAGE “Success” VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX.

/* doesn't work for query */
DEFINE TEMP-TABLE ttTemp NO-UNDO
    FIELD iKey as INTEGER.

FOR EACH ttTemp
    WHERE cKey EQ “value” OR iKey EQ INTEGER(cKey):
    MESSAGE “Success” VIEW-AS ALERT-BOX.
END.

In 12.4 the above code now attempts to evaluate 'iKey EQ INTEGER(cKey)' and gets the expected error because it holds a non-integer value.
** Invalid character in numeric input 'v'. (76)

Steps to Reproduce

Clarifying Information

Error Message

** Invalid character in numeric input <character>. (76)

Defect Number

Enhancement Number

Cause

This is expected behavior. Defect OCTA-44293 was logged as a defect and was closed as expected behavior.

In fact, there was never any short-circuiting going on here. Expressions in a WHERE clause that do not involve fields in the table being queried are evaluated always, once, before executing the query against the database.

Short-circuiting occurs later, when executing the query, but the evaluation of conditions that do not involve fields in the table being queried were performed well before this, hence the errors on conditions that cannot execute successfully; like INTEGER("hello")..

The behavior change in 12.4 was intentional and is documented in article Errors (except missing field error) are ignored when evaluating query expressions.

Resolution

The -zNoQryExpErrors reverts to the pre-12.4 behavior.

Please note that the parameter is meant to be used as a temporary work-around. It is possible that without it, you may, occasionally, be returning incorrect data to your customers. So Progress Software strongly recommends that in the long-term, you fix your code to avoid any new errors rather than use this undocumented startup parameter.

Workaround

Notes

References to Other Documentation:
Progress Article(s):
Errors (except missing field error) are ignored when evaluating query expressions
Short circuit evaluation is happening on client side query expressions

Keyword Phrase

Last Modified Date

7/9/2024 1:59 PM

Both sides of OR are evaluated in 12.4 WHERE clause when the first is TRUE

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Both sides of OR are evaluated in 12.4 WHERE clause when the first is TRUE

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