Mariadb – Connection string for MariaDB using ODBC

As I suspected this may have been, it actually appears to be an issue in Crystal Reports 2008 on the client side.

Though I was unable to see the schema enumerated in the list of schemas, after selecting "Update" to link the two, I WAS able to select the various fields necessary and generate the report from the new datasource.

So, end result -- it doesn't show up, but it's there.

SQL Server always returns NULLs in this case. I know of no way to globally (through server settings or connection strings) cause it to return empty strings or zeroes instead of NULLs. And I do not think it is a database library issue--using different drivers won't change a thing. This is just the way SQL Server behaves.

If you want to convert NULLs to something else, you'll need to explicitly use the IsNull(Expression, ValueIfNull) function or the similar Coalesce() function which takes multiple parameters and returns the first non-null value.

SELECT O.OrderID, IsNull(CustomerName, '') CustomerName
FROM
   dbo.OrderTable O
   LEFT JOIN dbo.CustomerTable C
      ON O.OrderCustomerID = C.CustomerID

Though one comment... why would there be an order with no customer? Wouldn't a customer with no order be more likely?

Update

Can you put in a wrapper that, client side, converts the NULLs to what you want? What process or program are you using to convert the result sets to text?