I am trying to compare a string read from a file to a string retrieved from an Oracle 8i database. However, the string returned from the database seems to have NULL characters between each character, causing my comparison to fail every time. When I do a split on the string and print it out: 

@test = split (//,$something);
foreach (@test) {print "$_\n";}

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I get a blank line between each character. If I do the following to the string before comparison: 

$something =~ /\0//g;

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The string acts as I would expect it to. The odd thing is that the NULLS do not appear if I run the SQL inside of a CGI script, just when it is run from the command line. Also, if I print the string to the console, the NULLS disappear, as if the print function knows how to deal with them. Has anyone ever seen anything like this? 
Thanks in advance for any assistance that you can provide.

In reply to DBI returns NULL characters in string by jcbyrne

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