[Zope-DB] ZSQL and update, what is the correct way to deal with nulls?

[Matthew T. Kromer]

David Wilbur wrote:

>
> hi, 
> i was hoping that someone could describe to me what is the right way 
> to deal with null and zsql methods.  i have come up with the following 
> _EXAMPLE_ below that works... but, this table only has one field that 
> allows null and i'm sitting here saying to my self... wow, what if it 
> had like 10 permutations of nulls?  i just cant envision that i would 
> have to write 10 zsql methods.  i figure that i must be missing 
> something in the rather sparse documentation on zsql...
>
> is  'None' the normal way that zsql indicates null when you do a 
> select [colums] from [table name]?  How do you distinguish between the 
> string 'None' and when it is indicating that the value is null?
>

None is different from "None".  In Python, None is a special singleton 
object.  Most database adapters will map the value NULL for a column 
into None, and vice versa.  However, if you accidentally convert the 
column value into a string, you lose the ability to distinguish between 
None and "None."

Beware of using dtml-var to generate form input, it will convert None to 
"None" for you.  Note that there IS no way to represent None in a form 
variable to my knowledge -- None has no web representation.  You usually 
must convert "" to None if that is your intent.

-- 
Matt Kromer
Zope Corporation  http://www.zope.com/