NULL vs NOT NULL

suggest change

Examples of what happens when NULL and ‘bad-value’ are stored into nullable and not nullable columns. Also shows usage of casting to numeric via +0.

CREATE TABLE enum (
    e     ENUM('yes', 'no')   NOT NULL,
    enull ENUM('x', 'y', 'z')     NULL
        );
INSERT INTO enum (e, enull)
    VALUES
        ('yes', 'x'),
        ('no',  'y'),
        (NULL,  NULL),
        ('bad-value', 'bad-value');
Query OK, 4 rows affected, 3 warnings (0.00 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 3

mysql>SHOW WARNINGS;
+---------+------+--------------------------------------------+
| Level   | Code | Message                                    |
+---------+------+--------------------------------------------+
| Warning | 1048 | Column 'e' cannot be null                  | 
| Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'e' at row 4     |
| Warning | 1265 | Data truncated for column 'enull' at row 4 |
+---------+------+--------------------------------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

What is in the table after those inserts. This uses “+0” to cast to numeric see what is stored.

mysql>SELECT e, e+0 FROM enum;
+-----+-----+
| e   | e+0 |
+-----+-----+
| yes |   1 |
| no  |   2 |
|     |   0 |  -- NULL
|     |   0 |  -- 'bad-value'
+-----+-----+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>SELECT enull, enull+0 FROM enum;
+-------+---------+
| enull | enull+0 |
+-------+---------+
| x     |       1 |
| y     |       2 |
| NULL  |    NULL |
|       |       0 |  -- 'bad-value'
+-------+---------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Found a mistake? Have a question or improvement idea? Let me know.

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