kas (3/4/2008)

---

Points taken, absolutely Shaun.

However, NULLs cannot be excluded from the results of queries. Suppose for instance, looking again at my example, we have some kind of accounting database, with various kinds of transaction types in a table containing transactions. If we query that table and sum up all transactions of type "expense_transaction" to give a sum "total_expenses", what happens if there are no transactions of type "expense_transaction"? The answer is that our sum will be NULL, not zero. In that case we would have to wrap the summed total value in our N2Z function, either in the query (or procedure) generating the sum, or in any calculations which use the final value of the sum.

Hence, it is quite possible for NULL values to be encountered even in well-designed production database applications.

Agree?

Regards

Ken.