Your nulls may be a literal null.
If you: SET NULL ‘ ‘ (I am not sure what your quote settings are) and then browse your data – do you still see -0- If so, then you have the blank column actually containing a text value of “-0-“ To change them back to a real null then: UPDATE tablename SET columnname = NULL WHERE columnname = ‘-0-‘ Steve Steve Vellella Office: 520-498-2256 Cell: 520-250-6498 From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matthew Burke Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 10:46 AM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: How do I make NULL truly NULL? Well here's my problem with how it seems to work. I understand the need to visually separate null from a blank space within R:Base. So sure, when I open a table within R:Base show me some kind of value, -0- will do just fine. However when I export data from my table to say... and basic csv text file. That data should not be represented by a -0-, but nothing at all, in my opinion. That way if I want to use the data in another database, or as in this case a third party wants to use it in another database, they can do so without the other database having to understand that -0- = null. I thought about setting NULL = ' ' but even that wouldn't work, because even then the third party database would still have to know that null = ' '. I'm certainly no database guru and I really appreciate all the help I receive from you guys and gals. My only other database experience lies with MySQL and it's always been my understanding that null = nothing at all. So I guess ultimately I don't really need to know why R:Base uses text representation for null, but I need to know if there is a solution I can use to make null = nothing at all or empty. Basically if 'empty' was or possibly is a valid command, the logic I want to accomplish is R> set null empty. Is this possible? To further explain what I want, here’s an example. Let's say we have a table with one row containing three fields of data; a, b, and c. Field b is null in this case. Something like this. a b c 1 text -0- text As my R:Base is setup now, if I were to export this data to a text file (csv) I get: "text","-0- ","text" The end result text file (csv) I want to achieve is: "text","","text" Thanks again for all your help with my novice problems/questions. Matthew Burke Pioneer Bank - IT Department Computer Systems Technician 505-627-4415 This email contains PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL information intended only for the use of the addressee(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify us by replying to this email and delete this email from your records. Thank you for your cooperation.
