When importing data I need to test for an empty value and then replace
it with something meaningful. I'm not smart enough to test for nulls
and it also makes for too much code. Also, if I don't convert a null to
something other than a null I can't insert a record into a table that
doesn't accept nulls (which all of mine are). It is way easier for me
to to change the tables to not accept nulls.
YMMV
On 4/16/2015 3:23 AM, Laurie Alvey wrote:
In my innocence, I wonder why you want to disallow NULLs? They are, IMHO,
the best way to hold unknown or irrelevant column values.
Laurie
On 15 April 2015 at 20:31, Richard Kaye <[email protected]> wrote:
Different answers to different questions, my friend. Yes, VFP prior to 8
allowed you to have ambiguous grouping. As long as you were willing to
accept that the non-aggregated, non-grouped column results were potentially
meaningless at best then it wasn't something to worry about. In Jeff's
case, he is not running a query; he is altering existing table structures.
The column types themselves are not ambiguous so a numeric column
previously supporting nulls will get a zero. Booleans go false and so on.
--
rk
-----Original Message-----
From: ProfoxTech [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Stephen Russell
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:25 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Nulls
VFP allows you to not "group by" properly in a query with an aggregate as
an output. Sometimes you want to identify what the absence of value is in
a system. A 0 may be valid measurement for one test yet you should never
average that same data with a 0. That column may be AttemptsMade.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 2:12 PM, Richard Kaye <[email protected]>
wrote:
Nope, MSSQL guy. ;-) VFP does that for you when you turn off nulls. It
looks at the data type and puts in a default value.
Jeff, you will be able to script those structure updates using ALTER
TABLE. Definitely faster than using the UI to MODI STRU.
--
rk
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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