Yes, another NULL vs empty string question.
I agree with the idea that NULL means not set, while empty string means \"a value that is empty\". Here\'s my problem: If the
What you need to do is figure out what behavior you want. There is no one fixed algebra of how name strings are interpreted.
Think about the state machine here: you have fields which have several states: it slounds like you're thinking about a state of "unitialized", another of "purposefully empty" and a third with some set value. ANYTHING you do that makes that assignment and is consistent with the rest of your program will be find; it sounds like the easy mapping is
NULL → uninitialized
"" → purposefully unset
a name → initialized.