[Gambas-devel] Empty string sets controls and collections members to null Question

[Benoît Minisini]

> On Tuesday 24 November 2009 17:51:12 Ron_1st wrote:
> > On Monday 23 November 2009, Benoît Minisini wrote:
> > > > On Monday 23 November 2009 21:49:56 you wrote:
> > > > > > On Thursday 27 August 2009 19:55:01 you wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I asked this before (text below) and to my recollection (maybe
> > > > > > faulty) Benoit said that the behaviour causing me problems was
> > > > > > normal, however I really need to find a solution.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > In a nutshell again it is this:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > I use collections to transfer data to-from my database to
> > > > > > add/update records (don't use the gambas datacontrol).
> > > > > >
> > > > > > If an existing collection has a member containing text eg
> > > > > >
> > > > > > MyCollection!my_value = "a dog", and I'm updating the record,
> > > > > > lets say I've deleted the text in the input field, and the value
> > > > > > in the backend for that field in a table now has to be  an empty
> > > > > > sting or null, if I do this:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > MyCollectioni!my_value = "", effectively removes the 'my_value'
> > > > > > key from the collection, dosn't set its string to null.
> >
> > The problem is not the database but the collection object.
> > He is using a collection where the index name is the field name in the
> >  database. Setting the his_collection(db_field') = "" removes the item
> > from the collection instead of having his_collection('db_field') = ""
> >
> > This is what I understand here.
> 
> ah, at last someone who understands the problem, ?any solution?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Richard
> 

I don't see any problem at all.

MyCollection!my_value = "" will remove the my_value from the collection. So 
MyCollection!my_value will return NULL (which is the same thing as ""), and so 
you can store it into the database record without special code.

Again: why do you want/need to make a difference between NULL and ""?

-- 
Benoît Minisini