Arthur Fuller
artful at rogers.com
Fri Mar 11 23:46:32 CST 2005
Time to get on my high horse.... I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, defeater of the Saxons, lord over Allllll Briton, do declare... Let us never mistake nulls for zeroes. This is a BAD idea. JFC's zeroth row argument notwithstanding, in fact I have banished him from the roundtable for his insistence on this foolish opinion. Null is null. It is NOT zero. These two values should never be confused, nor should they be conflated by making the default value of a column zero. This is BAD design. Nulls mean "I don't know." Zeroes mean (as in how many children do you have?) zero. Big difference! Plugging zeroes into nulls is BAD BAD BAD. SPANK! Don't do it again or I shall have to send you to a correctional school run by deviant priests. Don't do it! Don't ever do it. Don't believe JC's zero'th row argument, he is deluded and has simply found a comfortable workaround his inability to comprehend joins. That's all there is to it. Nulls are nulls. Zeroes are zeroes. Arthur dmcafee at pacbell.net wrote: ><back pedal mode on> > >WHERE LEN(Contact) = 0 > >would return a null when Contact is null, not a zero. > >the following below will take care of nulls, '', ' ', ' ' and variations >of spaces > > >UPDATE Projects2 >SET ContactEmail = NULL >WHERE ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(@X)),'') = '' > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com >[mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of >dmcafee at pacbell.net >Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 10:14 AM >To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com >Subject: RE: [dba-SQLServer] Update query through Access ADP > > >Steven since you have the answer to your question, I'd like to chime in to >let you know that you can also do something like this: > >UPDATE Projects2 >SET ContactEmail = NULL >WHERE LEN(Contact) = 0 > >D > > >-----Original Message----- >From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com >[mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Steve >Erbach >Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 5:52 AM >To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com >Subject: [dba-SQLServer] Update query through Access ADP > > >Dear Group, > >I've been looking through some of a client's ASP application with a >view to making some slight modifications. (There are almost 800 ASP >files. Yikes!) > >The back end is SQL Server and I've been using Access 2003 to >construct views and stored procedures. I've been working on a COPY of >the tables on my own SQL Server rather than the customer's live data. > >What's got me curious is this: I've been working with an sproc that >updates a column containing an email address. It looks something like >this: > >UPDATE Projects2 >SET ContactEmail = NULL >WHERE (Contact = '') OR (Contact = ' ') OR (Contact IS NULL) > >So if the Contact name doesn't have anything in it, I want the >Contact's email address to be NULL. At present, there's a default >e-mail address in every row. > >After the sproc runs I look at the table itself. Well, this table has >133,000 records in it. Access 2003 shows me the first 10,000 by >default. But when I go past the 10,000th record, the e-mail column >still has addresses in it even though the Contact field is empty. > >Is there something I'm missing in the sproc? Something like a command >that says, "OK, I really, REALLY want to update the rows beyond >10,000, too." > >Regards, > >Steve Erbach >Scientific Marketing >Neenah, WI >www.swerbach.com >Security Page: www.swerbach.com/security >_______________________________________________ >dba-SQLServer mailing list >dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver >http://www.databaseadvisors.com > >_______________________________________________ >dba-SQLServer mailing list >dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver >http://www.databaseadvisors.com > >_______________________________________________ >dba-SQLServer mailing list >dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com >http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver >http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > >