Wasn't there a switch to toggle Oracles empty varchar2 - null behavior?

As everybody working with Oracle knows, it an empty Varchar2 will result in a NULL value when put into a Varchar2 column.开发者_开发知识库

I (and a coworker as well) thought we had read about a parameter that could be set in the database to change that behavior and actually differentiate between null values and empty Strings.

Is there such a parameter in the new versions? (We think since 10g)

Or is there a parameter which we might confuse with it with?

No, Oracle internally stores empty strings and nulls identically, so it cannot distinguish between them whether it wants to or not! Both are stored as a zero character count and no other data.