Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Zoltan Boszormenyi
Alexander Staubo írta: On 6/4/07, Andrew Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:37:42AM +0200, PFC wrote: > NULL usually means "unknown" or "not applicable" Aaaargh! No, it doesn't. It means NULL. Nothing else. If it meant unknown or not applicable or anything else,

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread PFC
Aaaargh! No, it doesn't. It means NULL. Nothing else. Well, x = UNKNOWN doesn't make any sense... the answer is UNKNOWN. x IS UNKNOWN does make sense, the answer is true or false. Replace UNKNOWN with NULL... Actually it means what the DBA wants it to mean (which opens the doo

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Andrew Sullivan
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 03:38:01PM +0100, Richard Huxton wrote: > Well, a strict "unknown" is fine - so long as it means just that. > How tall is Andrew? Unknown > How tall is Richard? Unknown > Are Andrew and Richard the same height? Unknown > > The problem is the slippery-slope from "unkno

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Alexander Staubo
On 6/4/07, Andrew Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:37:42AM +0200, PFC wrote: > NULL usually means "unknown" or "not applicable" Aaaargh! No, it doesn't. It means NULL. Nothing else. If it meant unknown or not applicable or anything else, then SELECT * F

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Greg Smith
On Mon, 4 Jun 2007, Ian Harding wrote: The hazard with doing stuff like that is some joker could name their kid Billy NMN Simpson. Or this http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp That settles it; I'm getting custom plates with NULL on them just to see if it makes it impossible for me to

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Richard Huxton
Andrew Sullivan wrote: On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:37:42AM +0200, PFC wrote: NULL usually means "unknown" or "not applicable" Aaaargh! No, it doesn't. It means NULL. Nothing else. If it meant unknown or not applicable or anything else, then SELECT * FROM nulltbl a, othernulltbl

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Owen Hartnett
At 12:37 AM +0200 6/4/07, PFC wrote: Yeah, it is awful ;^) However the existing system is equally awful because there is no way to enter NULL! Consider this form : First name :Edgar Middle name : J. Last name : Hoover Now, if someone has no middle name, like "John Smith", should we

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Ian Harding
On 6/3/07, PFC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yeah, it is awful ;^) However the existing system is equally awful > because there is no way to enter NULL! Consider this form : First name :Edgar Middle name : J. Last name : Hoover Now, if someone has no middle name, like "John Smith",

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-04 Thread Andrew Sullivan
On Mon, Jun 04, 2007 at 12:37:42AM +0200, PFC wrote: > NULL usually means "unknown" or "not applicable" Aaaargh! No, it doesn't. It means NULL. Nothing else. If it meant unknown or not applicable or anything else, then SELECT * FROM nulltbl a, othernulltbl b WHERE a

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-03 Thread PFC
Yeah, it is awful ;^) However the existing system is equally awful because there is no way to enter NULL! Consider this form : First name :Edgar Middle name : J. Last name : Hoover Now, if someone has no middle name, like "John Smith", should we use NULL or "" for the middle nam

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-03 Thread Alexander Staubo
On 6/3/07, Ian Harding <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 6/3/07, Alexander Staubo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Your patch is awful because it would mean there was no way to enter an > empty string in the database. A one-character string containing a > single space is not an empty string. Yeah, it is

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-03 Thread Ian Harding
On 6/3/07, Alexander Staubo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 6/3/07, Ian Harding <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > An empty string is not null! Null means the value is missing, which is > > clearly not the case here. I would say Rails is exactly in the right > > here. When an HTML form is posted, empty

Re: NULLS and User Input WAS Re: [GENERAL] multimaster

2007-06-03 Thread Alexander Staubo
On 6/3/07, Ian Harding <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > An empty string is not null! Null means the value is missing, which is > clearly not the case here. I would say Rails is exactly in the right > here. When an HTML form is posted, empty input boxes are declared as > empty strings, which what the