Subject Re: SUM
From Mervyn Bick <invalid@invalid.invalid>
Date Sun, 14 Jan 2024 14:27:35 +0200
Newsgroups dbase.getting-started

On 2024/01/14 13:53, Andy Taylor wrote:
> Hi Mervyn,
>
> Eeek! It's a matter of preference, but I try to avoid nulls as much as
> possible. "Set AutonullFields Off" and "xxx.rowset.autonullfields=false"
> are my friends here and neither are the default settings in dBASE.

To each his own.  If it works, it's not wrong.  :-)

I'm one of the programmers who prefer to allow nulls in fields and then
deal with them in code.  That way there is less chance of being bitten
by a gotcha although one definitely needs to be constantly aware that
nulls are lurking. :-)

In the end it probably depends on what one does with a field containing
null.  If you are going to sum a numeric field having zeros instead of
nulls it won't make a difference.  It can, however, make a significant
difference if you need to calculate the average value.
.
Mervyn.