RE: null or not null

Well... First of all why don't you want to? I guess it could be a pain = in the !@$ Tell them that all of the code is written to support nulls and that if = they are gone then the code will have all of these useless where = clauses... (no wait don't tell them that they might just make you = change the code) Maybe go with a more theoretical approach Tell them that Informix designed nulls on purpose. They represent the = 'unknown' and that if you fill them with default values this defeats the = symbolism of a null entry. I can tell you that in my particular environment there are fields where = null is more significant than a default value would be. There are Y/N = fields that CANNOT be populated with a default. Maybe you should try to = find a specific example like this in your database. -----Original Message----- From: informix-list-owner@rmy.emory.edu = [SMTP:informix-list-owner@rmy.emory.edu] On Behalf Of volverine Sent: Thursday, April 24, 1997 8:11 PM To: informix-list@rmy.emory.edu Subject: null or not null Ok guys, I need your help on this. I recently had a "fight" with my supervisors ( who never worked as DBA ) for "null" and "not null". According to them, they want to change all the "null" columns in database to "not null" columns and put a "default" on them. All they want me to prove is, why can't they do it ?? Space is not a problem here. But will the performance will get affected by this ? I really need to have some points to fight them and surprisingly I am running out of them. Please help !!! Thanx in advance.