Re: [WWdevel] webwork: problem values getting set to zero

[P G. L. <gl...@um...>]

Hi John,

In that get() promotes NULL to "" anyway, it's not clear to me that we can
tell the difference between fields that are "" in the database and those
which are NULL.  Does that make sense?  The only place that I can think
that we grab data out of the database without using get() is with list(),
which I think gets indexed/key fields which can't be null.

So I think from anywhere at the level of DB.pm or above we can't tell if a
field is empty or NULL, in which case it shouldn't matter if all empty
fields are stored as NULL.

Gavin

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 at 09:26 John Jones wrote:

> This sounds like it is my fault since I changed field types from all
> being strings to being types related to what was being stored.  What you
> suggest is probably the best course of action.  I wonder if all
> instances of "" should be demoted to NULL, or if it should only be done
> for fields with type integer.
>
> Another possibility would be to revert part of my change so that integer
> types would not be used in the future which would avoid the promotion
> problem for courses created after that.
>
> John

-- 
P. Gavin LaRose, Ph.D.  Program Manager (Instructional Tech.)
Math Dept., University of Michigan
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