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Storing NULL values in DB

Hi
I have a date field that might or might not contain data. What do you suggest I store it as
I store it as NULL riht now, but it is causing some problems such as nullPointer Exceptions.

My questions is -> what do experts do?
1. store null and then do a try catch whenever we access it
or 2. use a dummy date as 1901-01-01 as date and then change it during display as "" <empty string>

Thank you!

yongsing

Use option 1.

When you access it, you test it for null:

ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("select datecol from yourtable");
while (resultSet.next()) {
Date date = resultSet.getDate(1);

// test to see if date is null
if (date != null) {
// do something with the date
}

}
resultSet.close();

applekanna

ASKER

I got this problem becoz it was like this

ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("select datecol from yourtable");

java.util.Date date = resultSet.getDate(1);//this returns java.sql.Data

resultSet.close();

I added a private method to later conver sql date to util date and added a try catch there.
Looking for your expert opinion

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yongsing

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applekanna

ASKER

oops..
I tried this when it gave me an error
PreparedStatement pstmt

pstmt.setDate(utildate);

applekanna

ASKER

I should have type casted it.

pstmt.setDate(11, (java.sql.Date)utilDate);