title: How to return empty string in resultset (using sys_refcursor) in ORACLE DB
body: <p>After facing the problem:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>ORA-32108: max column or parameter size not specified</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I researched a little and I found these two questions: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/203493/why-does-oracle-9i-treat-an-empty-string-as-null">Why does Oracle 9i treat an empty string as NULL?</a> and <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1268177/oracle-not-distinguishing-between-nulls-and-empty-strings">Oracle not distinguishing between nulls and empty strings?</a> .</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>These questions explain the error I get. But this led me to the next question - how can I return empty string as a field value in a ResultSet in Oracle?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>What I have so far is:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>create the statement</li>
  <li>register output parameter as <code>oracle::occi::OCCICURSOR</code></li>
  <li><code>execute</code> the statement</li>
  <li>the I call <code>GetCursor</code> to use the returned resultset</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>The <code>execute</code> fails, because of the error, described above.</p>
  
  <p>So, how can I return such field in the resultset, which has value an empty string (<code>''</code>)?</p>
  
  <p>In other words, I don't know how to apply the action, specified <a href="http://ora-32108.ora-code.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">HERE</a> - is it something server-side? Or I should add something in my code? Or in the stored procedure, that returns this resultset?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>I use OCCI (Oracle C++ Call Interface). My current workaround is to return a string, containing a single space (<code>' '</code>), but I don't like it.</p>