Hi,
we have a Visual Studio 2013 DB Project which we use to create and populate a test database.

We have a table with a varchar NULL column (defaultvalue), and when we run the publish.sql script any INSERT of '' get converted to '0' values.

This is the table definition

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CatalogueItemExtensionFields] 
(
    [RowID] tinyint identity not null,
    [FieldType] tinyint not null,
    [Description] varchar(120) not null,
    [Nullable] bit not null,
    [DefaultValue] varchar(100) null,
    [Active_Flag] bit null,
    [OrderPriority] tinyint not null,
    [ContextGuid] uniqueidentifier not null
);

This is the INSERT statement, and we want to insert an empty string into the "defaultvalue" field

set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields on

INSERT INTO CatalogueItemExtensionFields (rowid, fieldtype, description, nullable, defaultvalue, active_flag, orderpriority) 
VALUES (1, 3, 'Product Group', 0, '', 1, 1)

set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields off

If we run the above script manually it works fine. But when it is run in SQLCMD mode by the DB project PUBLISH action, we see that '0' is inserted.

What we have also done is modify the publish.sql file manually, as follows

set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields on

INSERT INTO CatalogueItemExtensionFields (rowid, fieldtype, description, nullable, defaultvalue, active_flag, orderpriority) 
VALUES (1, 3, 'Product Group', 0, 'TEST STRING', 1, 1)

set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields off

When we manually execute the publish.sql we get this error:

 'Msg 245, Level 16, State 1, Line 7 Conversion failed when converting the varchar value 'test' to data type int.'

So this means that the SQLCMD thinks the field is an INT, but that is not how it appears in the table definition.

Is there an obscure DB setting used in SQLCMD mode?

Thanks for your help

Hi,

sorry but I had missed a crucial point. I was running multiple INSERT statements, and in some of those I was writing an INT to the varchar field.

As a result, SQL Server "decided" that the field was really (?) an INT, and giving me the error when I tried to insert a string.

Not sure I understand why though.

set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields on

INSERT INTO CatalogueItemExtensionFields (rowid, fieldtype, description, nullable, defaultvalue, active_flag, orderpriority) VALUES
(6, 3, N'Product Group', 0, N'', 1, 6),
(7, 2, N'Minimum Order Quantity', 1, NULL, 1, 7),
(8, 3, N'Additional HIBCs', 0, 1, 1, 8)
set identity_insert CatalogueItemExtensionFields off

If I instead run the following statement, with a default value of '1' for RowID = 8, it all works fine.

INSERT INTO CatalogueItemExtensionFields (rowid, fieldtype, description, nullable, defaultvalue, active_flag, orderpriority) VALUES
(6, 3, N'Product Group', 0, N'', 1, 6),
(7, 2, N'Minimum Order Quantity', 1, NULL, 1, 7),
(8, 3, N'Additional HIBCs', 0, '1', 1, 8),

So, why does SQL Server do this?

Full post on Stack Overflow

empty string converts to an int without an error, and it's value is zero. it has to do with the precidence of implicit conversions

you could use the NULLIF function to resolve this, but i'm not sure if that's possible in your case or not

INSERT INTO CatalogueItemExtensionFields (rowid, fieldtype, description, nullable, defaultvalue, active_flag, orderpriority) 
SELECT 1, 3, 'Product Group', 0,NULLIF('',''), 1, 1 UNION ALL
SELECT 2, 3, 'Product Group', 0,NULLIF('4',''), 1, 1 

Lowell

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