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Similarly, Nulls are often confused with empty strings. Consider the LENGTH function, which returns the number of characters in a string. When a Null is passed into this function, the function returns Null. This can lead to unexpected results, if users are not well versed in 3-value logic. An example is below:
Strings are reference types in Visual Basic .NET, and so capable of being null (as opposed to simply zero-length, empty, strings). For such strings, this function returns True. (For empty strings it returns False.) [21] [18] IsNull(expression) This function determines whether the expression passed as its argument evaluates to Null. A null value ...
Null functions have several uses. During software development, null functions with the same names and type signatures as a planned functions are often used as stubs—that is, as non-functional placeholders that allow the incomplete body of code to be compiled and tested prior to completion of all planned features.
Additionally, because SQL operators return Unknown when comparing anything with Null directly, SQL provides two Null-specific comparison predicates: IS NULL and IS NOT NULL test whether data is or is not Null. [8] SQL does not explicitly support universal quantification, and must work it out as a negated existential quantification.
NULL is frequently used to represent a missing value or invalid value, such as from a function that failed to return or a missing field in a database, as in NULL in SQL. In other words, NULL is undefined. Primitive types such as integers and Booleans cannot generally be null, but the corresponding nullable types (nullable integer and nullable ...
In Ada, the null statement serves as a NOP. [13] As the syntax forbids that control statements or functions be empty, the null statement must be used to specify that no action is required. (Thus, if the programmer forgets to write a sequence of statements, the program will fail to compile.)
By returning a null object (i.e., an empty list) instead, there is no need to verify that the return value is in fact a list. The calling function may simply iterate the list as normal, effectively doing nothing. It is, however, still possible to check whether the return value is a null object (an empty list) and react differently if desired.
However, if it is nullable, which is the default like all other SQL data types, it can have the special null value also. Although the SQL standard defines three literals for the BOOLEAN type – TRUE, FALSE, and UNKNOWN — it also says that the NULL BOOLEAN and UNKNOWN "may be used interchangeably to mean exactly the same thing".