Empty String Equals To Blank: How To Change This Behaviour?
Feb 11, 2008
This seems to be a rather old problem (http://www.themssforum.com/SQLServer/Does-empty/) but I couldn't find an answer yet.
The problem is: I have two tables t1 and t2 where t1 is a staging area of t2.
t1: (id int not null, phone varchar(30))
t2: (id int not null, phone varchar(30))
Data in t1: (1, '') <- empty string
Data in t2: (1, ' ') <- a blank
Comparing t1.phone with t2.phone results in equality which in my opinion isn't correct.
The question ist: How can I change the behaviour of SQL-Server to result in inequality so that the change in my staging table is detected correctly?
Can we have blank value in Primary key field? Two fields are chosen as Primary Key for this table but the issue is at any given time one value will be blank when other is populated. Does sql server still order the records based on these keys? (Clustered index). Or should I just go about adding ID (identity)?
I'm doing a bcp out of a table to a file. Some of the fields in arecord may have an empty string.When I bcp out to the file and examine it, the fields that have anempty string in the database now show up in the file as having oneblank character.Why is bcp doing this? I don't want the blank character in my output.Thanks,Eric
i have a trigger on a table right now... when fields are inserted, theres a text field inserted and i want to check if that text field = '' (the empty string, not NULL) and if it doesn't equal that, then perform some row updates on other tables, but if it is empty, to not do anything else in the trigger... right now i have this:
Code:
IF ((SELECT Note FROM XATPoDetail WHERE ReqNbr = (SELECT ReqNbr FROM Inserted)) LIKE(''))
Note is the text field, XATPoDetail is the table where its being inserted into. I had to do the select FROM the table because it wouldn't let me select a text data type from the "Inserted" virtual table
but it tells me me "Error 279: The text, ntext, and image data types are invalid in this subquery or aggregate expression"
i have a trigger on a table right now... when fields are inserted, theres a text field inserted and i want to check if that text field = '' (the empty string, not NULL) and if it doesn't equal that, then perform some row updates on other tables, but if it is empty, to not do anything else in the trigger... right now i have this:
IF ((SELECT Note FROM XATPoDetail WHERE ReqNbr = (SELECT ReqNbr FROM Inserted)) LIKE(''))
Note is the text field, XATPoDetail is the table where its being inserted into. I had to do the select FROM the table because it wouldn't let me select a text data type from the "Inserted" virtual table
but it tells me me "Error 279: The text, ntext, and image data types are invalid in this subquery or aggregate expression"
In SSIS flat file import using fastload, I'm trying to import data into SQL 2005 previously created tables.
The table may contain column that are NULLable BUT there is NO DEFAULT for them.
If the incoming data from flat files contains nothing either between the delimeters, how can I have a NULL value inserted in the column instead of blank/empty string?
I didn't find an easy flag unless I'm doing something wrong. I know of at least two ways to do it the hard way:
1- set the DEFAULT(NULL) for EVERY column that needs this behaviour
2-set up some Derived Column option in the package to return NULL if the value is missing.
Both of the above are time consuming since I'm dealing with many tables. Is there a quick option to default the value to NULL WHEN there is NO data ELSE insert the data itself? So the same behavior that I have right now except that I want NULL in place of empty string/blank in the varchar(x) columns.
I have my SSIS package that reads elements from a Sharepoint list to a SQL table. The data type of my source is string and the destination is integer. The source column can sometimes be an empty string "" (not a required column)
Which expression to use and "where" or "what" SSIS component can I add this expression to? Like I know that I can use the "Conditional Split" to filter the data so for my expression which component can I use?
Hi we have projects that a number of people work on, When someone opens a project that someone else has been working on all the credentials for the different data sources have disappeared. This seems to be a default behaviour of reporting services, is there a way to change this? if so how?
i have the following problem: I have a matrix with a right subtotal column and this matrix was in a list (because in the end i will have more than one matrix). The list fits perfectly the matrix in design mode. But if i render the report in the viewer or to pdf, an additional blank area (like a blank copy of the subtotal column) was inserted after the right subtotal column of the matrix and increases the list too. You can see this easy by set the backgroundcolor of a list to a color. Without the subtotal column the list fits perfect after rendering. The problem is that this additional blank "column" creates empty pages in .pdf rendering, if the width of the matrix is near the page width. The same behaviour happens if i put the matrix with subtotal in a rectangle. I must use a list in the end because the the final report contains some matrixes and a subreport. So is this a bug? Someone must have this problem too?
I have a SQL Server table with nvarchar type column which has not null constraint. I am inserting empty string ("") from Java to the table column. When I export this table into .csv file using bcp tool, empty string gets written as NUL character. Is there any way I can bcp out empty string as empty string itself instead of NUL to the file?
Hi ng.I have a varchar field in my table, called Name.I wanna do a selection, which is ordered by whether this field is empty ornot.E.g. something like:SELECTUserIDORDER BYName <> '';- - -How can I accomplish this?TIA.Klaus.
For operands of the conditional operator, the data type DT_STR is supported only for input columns and cast operators. The expression "...see above..." has a DT_STR operand that is not an input column or the result of a cast, and cannot be used with the conditional operation.
The expression works if I replace the NULL(DT_STR, 0, 1252) with say "A" and the expression works on other non-string columns. (As in "NULL(DT_I1) : (DT_I1)100")
I need to check in my Stored procedure if the information passed is null or empty so I can decided to insert the new value or keep the old. How do I accomplish this please in T-SQL. Thanks in advance.
Hi: Trying to insert null value into sql table, but not working, if I use: if (strMyText.Length == 0) command.Parameters.Add("@Text", DBNull.Value); // or using:("@Text", null), or using:("@Text", DBNull) else command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Text", strMyText); When I go back to table, I see the value is: 'NULL', has single quotation mark, suppose to be: NULL Where is the problem? Thanks a lot. Jt
Hi all, I have some columns in my database which allows null. I want to know if leaving the field to be NULL or storing an empty string into the field, which will take up more space?? if the field type is varchar(100)
I've have about 100 tables, for some reasons, column values that are originally NULL was inserted as emtpy string. So, I am wondering if I can write JUST ONE SQL (hopefully don't have to specify the field names in the SQL as well) for each table so that all the empty strings will be converted back to NULL.
I developed an SSIS package and I'm using the dtexec utility to run it. The package has a variable RunDate (datetime) and i want to set this value to "" (empty string) when i try to run this package using the dtexec.
Currently I'm getting an error Argument option not valid. Thanks in advance
Hello, I have a problem where I need to include data from a table where one of the joined columns can contain empty strings. The emptry string column and its related columns need to be included in the results of the query.
The Join looks like this:
SalesData.dbo.tbl_CYProcessedSales ps INNER JOIN SalesData.dbo.vw_Product_CYProcessedSalesXref xr ON ps.Prod = xr.Prod AND ps.Acct = xr.AcctCode INNER JOIN TxnRptg.dbo.vw_NetNewRevenueUnion nn ON xr.BillingType = nn.BillingType AND xr.ProdGroup = nn.Product AND xr.AcctCode = nn.AcctCode
The problem occurs on the xr.BillingType = nn.BillingType portion of the join. the nn.BillingType can contain empty strings. I've tried a LEFT join to vw_NetNewRevenueUnion, but this has not worked.
In vw_NetNewRevenueUnion, BillingType becomes an empty string within a CASE statement if BillingType is NULL. I've thought about using something like 'All' in the ELSE condition, and doing the same in the vw_Product_CYProcessedSales view just so I don't have to deal with an empty string.
If I were not to do that, is there some way I can handle the empty string issue within the join so that empty string records will be included in the query results?
I am using a SQLDataSource with the following Select query. If the "spouse" values are not in the database, I get the HTML non-breaking-space character back, rather than an empty string.
SelectCommand="select applicant_id, (applicant_last_name + ', ' + applicant_first_name) as applicant_name, CONVERT(varchar(10), applicant_dob, 101) as applicant_dob, applicant_ssn, (spouse_last + ', ' + spouse_first) as spouse_name, CONVERT(varchar(10), spouse_dob, 101) as spouse_dob, spouse_ssn from applicant where applicant_last_name like '%'+@last_name+'%' order by applicant_last_name"
Hi all,I have this code that I use for my Search function:SELECT DISTINCT [MUSIC_TITLE], [MUSIC_ORIGINAL_SINGER], [MUSIC_PERFORMER]FROM t_musicWHERE (@MUSIC_TITLE IS NULL OR [MUSIC_TITLE] LIKE '%' + @MUSIC_TITLE + '%') AND (@MUSIC_ARTIST IS NULL OR ([MUSIC_ORIGINAL_SINGER] LIKE '%' + @MUSIC_ARTIST + '%' OR [MUSIC_PERFORMER] LIKE '%' + @MUSIC_ARTIST + '%')) But right now if I don't enter anything in one of the textbox (2 have two, either of them can be left empty), the above Sql statement doesn't return anything since ADO.NET can't tell an empty textbox and treat it at null... So anyone please help me how to detect an empty textbox and set that to null for the above SQL statement to work. (It work in SQL Manager Studio, when I set one of the parameter = null.) I'm very new to ASP.NET stuffs, so if someone can help me to convert that function to code-behind and help me to call it from the .aspx, that would be even better as I don't want to put the code in my .aspx page... But I'm not quite there yet. Thank you all,Kenny.
I am using the following query to calculate date differences:select ..........DATEDIFF(d, recruitment_advertising.advertising_date, career_details.RTS_Email AS Datetime) AS Ad_to_RTS_days FROM .....I have stored all my dates as NVARCHAR because of the issues with localization.If the value is an empty String my output is eg: -38700. which is way off and incorrect. Some of the values in my table are NULL and they produce the correct result.Is there a T-SQL statement to replace empy Strings with the NULL value in my tables.I'd like to use it as a trigger when inserting or updating to convert empty strings to NULLbefore the values are inserted.Thanks guys.
