On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Darren Duncan<[email protected]> wrote: > fREW Schmidt wrote: >> >> Why do you want them to be NULL? As a general rule, unless you have a >> specific requirement for NULL they're best avoided (see discussion >> passim). Even when you think you have all the bases covered there's >> some weird case where they turn out to be a PITA later... >> >> How is that the case? It seems like an undefined value makes perfect >> sense to allow users to specify. > > Sure it makes sense for users to specify that a value is undefined. > However, using a SQL NULL isn't always the best way to record this fact. > For one thing, there could be a variety of reasons why a value is undefined > (for example, "missing" versus "not applicable" versus more specific > reasons) but a SQL NULL wouldn't let you distinguish between them. A better > solution is to avoid the use of SQL NULL and instead represent undefined in > some other way, such as by having an undefined-because meta-data field. -- > Darren Duncan
Yes indeed. There is copious discussion online and in learned texts about how and why NULLs can spoil your day. http://www.bennadel.com/blog/85-Why-NULL-Values-Should-Not-Be-Used-in-a-Database-Unless-Required.htm DEFAULT '' is almost always the better way. P > > _______________________________________________ > List: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dbix-class > IRC: irc.perl.org#dbix-class > SVN: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/bast/DBIx-Class/ > Searchable Archive: > http://www.grokbase.com/group/[email protected] > _______________________________________________ List: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dbix-class IRC: irc.perl.org#dbix-class SVN: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/bast/DBIx-Class/ Searchable Archive: http://www.grokbase.com/group/[email protected]
