Re: Formatting Text Field - Form

On Thursday 17 March 2005 19:17, Thomas W Ping wrote:
> > > Mike, while I have your ear, I have another small-but-aggravating
> > > issue I'd like to toss at you.  In this table *and* in a little
> > > totally separate test table I made just to look at this issue (in a
> > > separate test database), I have date fields (not date:time, just
> > > date) that are set up within MySQL to be null-okay.  If I edit the
> > > dates via a Rekall *form* (with those fields set up in Rekall/form
> > > to be null-okay, as well) they work fine.  But if I edit them in a
> > > Rekall *table* (where they're also set up as null-okay), once a
> > > date is saved, I can't *remove* it.  I get a "[field] is not a
> > > date/time" error.  It (the Rekall table) is okay with the field
> > > being blank originally, and it's okay if I've made it blank via the
> > > form.  But if there's a date there when I open the table, I can't
> > > remove that date from within table data mode.  Any ideas on *this*?
> >
> > Ahha - a tar pit.
>
> I live in Los Angles; we know them well. :)  The La Brea Tar Pits are
> probably the best known here.  They're still pulling fossils out of
> them, I believe.  Personally, I'll readily cop to being a geezer, but
> I'm trying to stay away from the fossil descriptor.
>
> > First off, there is a field setting "emptynull" that you can set in
> > forms that converts empty strings to null as they are saved ... have
> > you perchance set this is the form?
>
> Yes, I have -- from the beginning.
>
> I see no such setting for the table.
>
> So I wondered if that was at least part of the issue.
>
> > Generally, its a bit of a throny issue, when is an empty string not
> > an empty string (when its null :) Interestingly, Oracle treats empty
>
> Right.  I'm used to that difference.
>
> > strings as null (which turns out to be a pain since you have to do
> > stuff like "where myfield = 'mike' ..." but "where myfield is null
> > ..." when you mean "where myfield = '' ....)
> >
> > A rekall table view is actually just a form, abliet one that is
> > constructed on the fly to match the table, so it might be appropriate
> > to set "emptynull" on date (and time and date/time) fields
> > automagically (and, maybe on numbers as well - for instance,
> > somewhere around v7.x, postgres started barfing on attempts to insert
> > empty strings as numbers, rather than coverting them to zero).
> >
> > Does this sound like a good idea, if so it should be quite trivial to
> > add???
>
> As I mentioned, I have "Null OK" enabled for the date fields in the
> table (as I do in the form).  The form design GUI offers another
> parameter: "Empty is null" (at this point that is not enabled for dates
> in my form; the form does not show this problem with making a
> previously filled date field empty).  What trivial change, exactly, are
> you suggesting for the table?

Sorry for the delay, been on holiday for a week.

I was suggesting making table data view do "empty is null" whenever a column 
is ok to be null (ie., *not* "not null" when the table is created) and its 
not a text column, on the basis that saving a record with (say) an empty date 
is only sensible if it saves null. I could do the same for text columns, but 
that changes the semantics a bit ....

Mike


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-- 
Regards
Mike

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