At 9:06 AM -0400 10/2/01, Frank J. Schmuck wrote:
>If I read a file into a database with a \N in an empty date field the field
>is populated with 0000-00-00. If I insert a row into the same database with
>NULL in the date field it is populated with NULL.
>
>Programmatically is there a difference between the two?
If you're using LOAD DATA to read the file with \N, you should get a
NULL in the field.
Here's a test data file:
\N
1999-12-31
Here's my set of test statements:
mysql> create table t (d date);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> load data local infile 'junk' into table t;
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.04 sec)
Records: 2 Deleted: 0 Skipped: 0 Warnings: 0
mysql> select * from t;
+------------+
| d |
+------------+
| NULL |
| 1999-12-31 |
+------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
If the DATE column had been declared NOT NULL, then the \N turns into
0000-00-00 instead. But it sounds from your description that the column
does allow NULL.
>
>Thanks
>Frank
--
Paul DuBois, paul@stripped
