Update Blank Fields In MySQL

[Milti]

Say I have a table with 5 fields. The first INSERT into the table requires and permits only the insertion of data into fields 1,2, and 3. At a later time a user might want to ad data in fields 4 and 5. If those fields are set to NULL the UPDATE query does not seem to work, apparently because there is nothing in those fields to update. There must be some way around this problem that I am missing. If I set the fields to NOT NULL and attempt to make the insertion in to fields 1,2, and 3, the program stops and I get an error saying field 4 doesn't have a default value (mysql shows that it does, i.e. NULL). The data type in all the fields is varchar. So what do I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[mbethke]

So what do I do?

Just show your code. It sounds more like a problem with SQL than with Perl but I suppose it's not very complicated in any case.

[Anonymous Monk]

This is nothing but a guess, but

If those fields are set to NULL the UPDATE query does not seem to work, apparently because there is nothing in those fields to update.

What's the query? "WHERE field4 = NULL"? Not going to work. "WHERE field4 IS NULL" will.

[Jim]

There's an extraneous left parenthesis on line 23 of your Perl script.

If fixing that bug doesn't help, try this.

Jim

[mendeepak]

set a default value for your fields and as others told you it sounds more like SQL problem than Perl.
FYI : whenever you write a question please provide what you have tried with your code

[Anonymous Monk]

NULL is a very good default value, you know. Don't be afraid of them.

[Milti]

Thanks! I set the default values on each column and used placeholders with the query. The problem has been solved!!! Many thanks to all who responded.