TPT: using VARDATE and empty string - response (5) by feinholz

VARCHAR and VARDATE are 2 different things.
Different code paths.
Different functionality.
VARDATE is specific to Dates/Times/Timestamps. And once you use the formatting options, it expects certain information.
We do not mix functionality of empty data with an attempt to convert data.
As I wrote before, in order to use the FORMATIN/FORMATOUT features, the data has to contain content. More specifically, it has to contain information according to the string you provided in the FORMATIN option.
 
I understand what you would like, and we can take it into consideration for a future release.
BTW, "zero lengh string" is not the same as NULL.
A 0-length string is just a string that is empty.
NULL is a characteristic of a column.