Hi,
Layering an application is an essential part of good software development. Decoupling system components makes maintainability easier. One such layer that I frequently employ is the Data layer. This layer is responsible for executing stored procedures and also retrieving field values.
e.g. myDataLayer.GetString(datareader, fieldname, String.Empty);
myDataLayer.GetInt(datareader, fieldname, Int32.MinValue);
Note : C# example
In this way it is the data layer that deals with nulls, or I could move null handling into the stored procedure level. Either way it soes not effect the rest of my code.
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If we were all the same, life would be a tad boring!