6 ms·

its... .... sorry not possible (can't store empty string in a NULL col either) for reals

• robertlagrant 5y ago
  Just store the string "empty" and hope there are no nihilists who've changed their names to match. Simple!
  • tracker1 5y ago
    Use vertical tab, or another whitespace or field separator character, like EOF etc. Generally something a modern keyboard won't be entering, and won't generally be transmitted over the wire.
    • jhgb 5y ago
      Or just prefix everything so that your string domain doesn't shrink? Then you don't have to worry what your users enter.
  • munk-a 5y ago
    Real programmers encode emptiness as ZZZ... (I once worked maintaining a MUD that used internal memory management and marked block terminals (which were unnecessary since it stored the length of blocks it had allocated) with ZZZ)
    • robertlagrant 5y ago
      ZZZ? EEK!