Making place an empty string, not null

[routledge]

Hey everyone

I have got myself a teeny weeny problem. I have linked our version of SugarCRM to our main database with the use of MySQL views. It has been a nagging and long winded affair but we are nearly at roll out. I have however got a nasty error on screen when I do not enter data into certain fields. This is `table`.`field` cannot be null. The reason I get this is simple the field that sugar is pointing to is a not null field and requires data. So I need to tell sugar to place a <-blank-> value in this field instead of null.

I know what you are thinking, simply change the field to allow null and move on with my life. This is the problem, I cannot, the reason for this is that the database is linked to by approx 7 x international websites as well as other applications and by doing this could damage the other applications and sites. So where do I insert code to make sugar produce a blank value for the database. I have been trying to place it in the vardefs for the various modules but with no success.

Regards

John

I'm running debian OS, apache 2.2, MySQL 5 sugar 5.2 CE

[crmsiva]

Better alter that particular table to allow null values.

[routledge]

Thank you for the speedy reply. however like I mentioned their is no way that I can change the field in the database to null.

Regards

John

[andopes]

Hi John

Can you clarify some details?
Which module, which field?
Are you saving sugarcrm data into a table other than the sugar one?
Let us know the scene you are working on.

Kind regards

[routledge]

Hi Andre

Long time no speak , what I have done is make the table (accounts) that sugar draws data from into a view table of another base table in a separate database on the same machine. This base table has all the information we require in the sugar accounts table as I have aliased the names from the base table to reflect in the view.

For example external_customer.customer_name = accounts.name

Sugar then sees the accounts.name and reads the data.

It is a thing of beauty we are able to update create all the tables we require with that one issue. the external_customer.customer_name field is a not null, so it has to have some kind of data in it. Where sugar accounts.name does not. Now for this field I can make it a required field, however in other fields the data is more sensitive and we cannot enter null, give them a default value (end user ease of use), or even enter a space for the default value as this makes the other techs very uncomfortable. I tried to enter an empty string i.e '' but this still does not stop sugar from trying to enter a null value.

Hope this helps Andre

Regards

John

[andopes]

Did you try using a logic_hook before_save for this purpose?

Cheers

[routledge]

No Andre, please give me an example of your thoughts?