function that makes a lot of vars empty

[coupe-r]

Hey guys,

 

OK, heres what I would like to do.  On my form, I have 50+ variables and not all of them require a response.  If inserted, they insert a blank in the DB, instead of NULL.  First, does this even matter?

 

If it does, how can I create a function that checks the var to see if its empty, and if empty $var = NULL;

 

Thanks

[kristijan.jurkovic]

<?php
function checkVars($var){
  if(empty($var)){
      $var = NULL;
      return $var;
  }else{
      return $var;
  }
}
?>

 

EDIT:

by the way if u r trying to put null variables directly to db with query it will add zero chars to the query and will leave u with blank or syntax error.. depends if u ll quote it or not

[coupe-r]

Thank you very much for that, but how do I now pass in every var?

 

Do I just do this?

 

checkVars($var1, $var2, $var3, etc.....)

 

PS - Thanks for using your first post on me

[coupe-r]

I insert the vars like this '".$var."'

[kristijan.jurkovic]

u see that function accepts only 1 input so u 'd have to do it through the loop somehow or 1 by 1 =)

 

for sql insert:

SQL is a string based language. SQL's NULL must be represented by NULL with no quotes

so query should be like this:

INSERT INTO foo SET bar = NULL;

however if you try to insert the PHP NULL directly into the query, it will add zero characters to the query

 

 

 

 

[coupe-r]

OK, no problem.  So it is OK if the DB fields dont say NULL and are just empty?

[kristijan.jurkovic]

well NULL is a marker which specifies that data does not exists in the field. alternatively u can put default value of the field in db as NULL so if u dont input anything in it it will be NULL

[coupe-r]

The default value is automatically NULL, but it still reads a blank field, not NULL.  Here is the var:

 

$workphone = trim(mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['workphone_txt']));

[kristijan.jurkovic]

yeah i know that. as i said before php null is not equal to sql null therefore you cannot insert it via variable.

you can try to build your query by checking if var is empty .... smthing like this:

 

$workphone = trim(mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['workphone_txt']));

$query = "INSERT INTO table (field1,field2,field3) VALUES('field1','field2', ";
if(!empty($workphone)){ $query .= "'$workphone')" }
else{ $query .= " NULL )";}

[coupe-r]

Perfect, thank you for your time.