I agree. I should check for empty strings intead of nulls. The application
doesn't convert them to null and the default value when a user leaves the
field blank on the web page is to save it as an empty string. Thanks.

Ferindo

On 10/16/06, Jerry Schwartz <jschwartz@the-infoshop.com> wrote:
>
> You might want to check for an empty string ("") rather than null. From
> what
> I can tell, HTML forms don't give you NULL values if you leave fields
> empty,
> they return "". Unless your programs internally convert empty strings to
> NULL, you won't find NULL in your table.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Schwartz
> Global Information Incorporated
> 195 Farmington Ave.
> Farmington, CT 06032
>
> 860.674.8796 / FAX: 860.674.8341
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ferindo Middleton [mailto:ferindo.middleton@gmail.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 9:16 PM
> > To: Dan Buettner
> > Cc: mysql
> > Subject: Re: help with update query
> >
> > Thanks Dan. This does help. This a pretty straight-forward
> > idea. I could
> > even save the results of this query to a text file and
> > possibly review it a
> > little before running it so I don't acidentally do anything
> > funky and I
> > could see the impact this would have on the data before
> > applying it. I think
> > maybe I'll even add a "WHERE email_address IS NULL" line
> > within the UPDATE
> > concatenation so I don't overwrite any records that already have an
> > email_address. I'll try this. Thanks alot!
> >
> > Ferindo
> >
> > On 10/14/06, Dan Buettner <drbuettner@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Ferindo, I had a similar task recently, and the problem you'll run
> > > into is that you can't select from and update the same
> > table at once.
> > > What I ended up doing was doing a SELECT to build the update queries
> > > for me.
> > >
> > > Something like this:
> > > SELECT CONCAT(
> > > "UPDATE bowler_score SET email_address = '", email_address, "' ",
> > > "WHERE firstname = '", firstname, "' ",
> > > "AND middlename = '", middlename, "' ",
> > > "AND lastname = '", lastname, "' ",
> > > "AND race = '", race, "' ",
> > > "AND religion = '", religion, "'; " )
> > > FROM bowler_score
> > > WHERE email_address LIKE "%@%"
> > >
> > > This finds all the entries where there appears to be a valid email
> > > address (contains @), and updates all the other records for that
> > > individual.
> > >
> > > Note this is not very efficient, since a LOT of update
> > queries will be
> > > generated, and also that if one person has more than one
> > email address
> > > (a typo perhaps) you will lose all but one address for them. But it
> > > should work, and it's pretty easy.
> > >
> > > HTH,
> > > Dan
> > >
> > > On 10/13/06, Ferindo Middleton < ferindo.middleton@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I have a table, bowler_score_records, with the following
> > columns: id,
> > > > firstname, middlename, lastname, race, religion, email_address,
> > > > bowling_score, gamedate
> > > >
> > > > As records get entered to this table, sometimes the users
> > forget to
> > > input
> > > > the email_address but the users always capture the full
> > name, race, and
> > > > religion. Assuming that no two individuals (bowlers)
> > would happen to
> > > have
> > > > the same name, race, and religion.
> > > >
> > > > I need to write a query to update the email_address for
> > all the records
> > > > where the users forgot to input it based on the idea that records
> > > carrying
> > > > the same full name, race, and religion are in fact the
> > same person,
> > > hence
> > > > the same email_address.
> > > >
> > > > Based on the schema described above, how would you write it?
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Ferindo
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Ferindo Middleton
> > Web Application Developer/Database Administrator/IT Infrastructure and
> > Integration Management Specialist/Perception Augmentation and Control
> > Supplementation Research Specialist for AI
> > Wetware-to-Software Interface and
> > Design
> > -Sleekcollar-
> >
>
>
>
>


--
Ferindo Middleton
Web Application Developer/Database Administrator/IT Infrastructure and
Integration Management Specialist/Perception Augmentation and Control
Supplementation Research Specialist for AI Wetware-to-Software Interface and
Design
-Sleekcollar-