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<div>Hi listers,</div>
<div>Ten years ago, when we moved over to an Oracle back end from CISAM, we made the decision to keep using zero for dates with no value.</div>
<div>This is fine if you only want to use Powerhouse to access the data, but anything else (including Oracle) complains loudly and at length about invalid dates.</div>
<div>Talking to Cognos, there’s a “DEFAULT DATE IS NULL” option on the database statement which <i>entirely transparently</i> translates NULL dates in the database into zero value dates for consumption by Powerhouse.</div>
<div>Does it work? Does it work transparently?</div>
<div>Does anyone have experience of using it? I guess if you’re using a SQL Server back end or an ODBC connection you have no choice.</div>
<div>More importantly, does anyone have any experience of turning this option on for a very mature database?</div>
<div>The upgrade path (make columns nullable, use QTP to set them to null, turn option on, recompile) would seem to be fairly simple, but are there any gotchas?</div>
<div>Many thanks in advance,</div>
<div>Stephen.</div>
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<div>--</div>
<div>Stephen Hulbert</div>
<div>Senior Analyst Programmer</div>
<div>For and on behalf of</div>
<div>Littlejohn LLP</div>
<div>Direct: 020 7516 2201</div>
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