Rails - Feb 2006 - Problem: Null values in a CSV format fixture show up a 0 in the test database

Hi all,

I''m running into a strange problem.  I''m trying to get null
values to
load from a fixture in CSV form into my test database, but they show  
up as 0 (zero).

I have a table people (simplified version below)

create table people (
	id					int				not null auto_increment,
	target				int				null default null,
	name				varchar(50)		not null,
	primary key(id)
);

that has a column target which can be null.  In my development  
database many people have null values for target.

In my unit tests, I want to be able to use all the people (a couple  
of hundred), so I exported people from MySQL 4.1.12-standard in CSV  
format using the following command:

	select * into outfile ''/tmp/people.csv'' fields terminated by
'',''
optionally enclosed by ''"'' lines terminated by
''\n'' from people;

That gives me a CSV file with null values represented as \N

According to the fixtures documentation, to get a null value inserted  
into your test database from a CSV, you should have nothing between  
the commas.

	"nulls can be achived by just placing a comma, for example,  
(1,sclaus,,false,) minus the parenthesis of course."
	http://manuals.rubyonrails.com/read/chapter/26


So I went through and replaced \N with nothing ... as a result rows  
that previously looked like:

	7,\N,"Steve"

now look like

	7,,"Steve"

The rails unit test libraries load the fixture without any complaints.

BUT....

wherever I had a null for target in my development database, I now  
have a 0 my test database.

This is a problem because 0 is an illegal value for a target...  
targets must be positive or non-existant.  As a result, the  
validation on my model (person.rb::validate) is failing and my unit  
tests are throwing errors.

As a work around, I commented out my validate, but I''d like to turn  
it back on.

I''m running the following:
	Mac OSX 10.4.5
	Ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) [powerpc-darwin8.0]
	Rails 1.0.0

Thanks for any help.
-Steve

_____________________
Steven Chanin
steven.chanin@gmail.com
schani@sapient.com


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