IBM Power Ideas Portal
This portal is to open public enhancement requests against IBM Power Systems products, including IBM i. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).
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This support is now available in version 1.1.8.6 dated December 2020.
This will be in our next update available in December 2020.
IBM understands this request and will consider it for a future code update, though no commitment is made or implied.
IBM has received this requirement and is evaluating it. A response will be provided when evaluation is complete.
Due to processing by IBM, this request was reassigned to have the following updated attributes:
Brand - Servers and Systems Software
Product family - Power Systems
Product - IBM i
Component - IBM i Access Family
Operating system - IBM i
Source - COMMON
For recording keeping, the previous attributes were:
Brand - Servers and Systems Software
Product family - Power Systems
Product - IBM i
Component - Db2 for i
Operating system - IBM i
Source - COMMON
The CAAC has reviewed this requirement and recommends that IBM view this as a high priority requirement that is important to be addressed. ACS needs a solution that is consistent with the industry and would differentiate between NULL and a hyphen.
Background: The COMMON Americas Advisory Council (CAAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CAAC has a key role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual RFEs on the broader IBM i community, and has therefore reviewed your RFE.
For more information about CAAC, see www.common.org/caac
For more details about CAAC's role with RFEs, see http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/i-Can/May-2017/COMMON-Americas-Advisory-Council-%28CAAC%29-and-RFEs/
Nancy Uthke-Schmucki - CAAC Program Manager
You can use coalesce over a null capable field and set it to a default value.
for example select coalesce( myfield, '' ) from mytable.
This will set any null fields to be an empty string.
The CEAC has reviewed this requirement and recommends that IBM view this as a HIGH priority requirement that is important to address. With this enhancement will help the user to determine if a column contains a null value, actual value or corrupt value.
Background: The COMMON Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) members have a broad range of experience in working with small and medium-sized IBM i customers. CEAC has a crucial role in working with IBM i development to help assess the value and impact of individual RFEs on the broader IBM i community and has therefore reviewed your RFE.
To find out how CEAC help to shape the future of IBM i, see CEAC @ ibm.biz/BdYSYj and the article "The Five Hottest IBM i RFEs Of The Quarter" at ibm.biz/BdYSZT
Therese Eaton – CEAC Program Manager, IBM
Don't confuse a null value with the null character. Some systems define all bits zero (i.e., x'00') as the null character. SQL standards define the null value as no value at all. in SQL you can compare the value of a column to the null predicate--i.e., "IS NULL"
Using the Unicode null symbol would work for a graphical environment, but could lead to confusion as a field could "not null", but filled with null characters. Keep in mind, a null column (field) is not x'00', but not anything else either. Here's the text from the SQL Reference:
>All data types include the null value. Distinct from all non-null values, the null
>value is a special value that denotes the absence of a (non-null) value.
>
>Except for grouping operations, a null value is also distinct from another null
>value. Although all data types include the null value, some sources of values
>cannot provide the null value. For example, constants and columns that are
>defined as NOT NULL cannot contain null values, the COUNT and COUNT_BIG
>functions cannot return a null value, and ROWID columns cannot store a null
>value although a null value can be returned for a ROWID column as the result of a
>query.
I like the concept and I've used null columns, but the implementation can be a fur-ball. In some ways it takes more work than the problem you're trying to solve.
Stop using DFU and start using more modern tools. DBU from ProData, SQL in ACS, or something like DBeaver in Eclipse.
Since ACS is displaying data in Unicode then it can actually use the null symbol U+2400
It will then show ␀