On Wed 13 Feb 2002 22:52, Jonathan Leffler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I've been emulating a pseudo-SQL command, UNLOAD, in DBI and > DBD::Informix, and one of the messy parts is handling the mapping of > undef into an empty string so as not to get warnings with 'perl -w'. > I've also routinely encountered this as a usability problem in ordinary > operation - and DBD::Informix testing. Would there be any merit in > having a DBI-wide mechanism that identifies whether the SQL NULL > non-values should be mapped to Perl undef or to a defined string - > probably the empty string?
I've been asking for this for ages :) but for the opposite reason: Storing an empty string in an Oracle varchar field renders it to NULL inside the database. > Here are some code fragments. The basic UNLOAD format is a text string > for each field, followed by a user-selectable delimiter, default '|'. > Each record ends with a newline. Backslash is used as the escape > character: backslash, newline and delimiter. The 'byte blob' encoding > is ghastly (but simple), and doesn't affect my discussion. > <snip> > If there's any significant resistance or lack of consensus, I'll simply > add an Informix-specific attribute that deals with this issue (settable > per $dbh and inherited by $sth, overridable per $sth). OTOH, I suspect > I'm not the only person to have noticed that this is a (minor) usability > problem and maybe having it standardized would be of benefit to most > users. > > What say you? Nuke NULL! (Worldwide!) Use *anything* you can get your hands on to do so. -- H.Merijn Brand Amsterdam Perl Mongers (http://amsterdam.pm.org/) using perl-5.6.1, 5.7.1 & 630 on HP-UX 10.20 & 11.00, AIX 4.2, AIX 4.3, WinNT 4, Win2K pro & WinCE 2.11 often with Tk800.022 &/| DBD-Unify ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/authors/id/H/HM/HMBRAND/
