Re: how does NOT work? - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Ian Harding
Subject Re: how does NOT work?
Date
Msg-id scc6757a.051@mail.tpchd.org
Whole thread Raw
In response to how does NOT work?  (tony <tony@animaproductions.com>)
List pgsql-general
I would discourage you from plugging in a default value if the true value is "unknown."  I recently had to put the
nullsback into a database where they had used 0 (zero) to represent "no evaluation" in a "score" column.  Well, they
triedaveraging the values and got a low value.  The zeroes figured into the average, where nulls would not. 

Nulls are worth the trouble sometimes.

- Ian

>>> tony <tony@animaproductions.com> 04/24/02 08:47AM >>>
On Wed, 2002-04-24 at 17:31, ARP wrote:
> I guess select count(*) from individu where type2 is null will return 5717 (18417-12619-81)

OK so I trashed the null values

Still don't understand the logic - I just want cells that don't start
with "a" I don't care if they contain null values or not.

But I will be rewriting everything so that there is a default value in
each and every cell from now on.

Thanks

Cheers

Tony

--
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