SSIS - Change Null columns to empty strings

Question

I have an SSIS Package that is copying data from a column that is Nullable to a table where the same column is not Nullable. There is red tape involved in making the source not nullable so for now I need a way to change the nulls to empty strings.

I get the data from an ADO .Net Source, not a query where I could just add a check for null. If need be I can switch to a query and just do the check at that point. Before I do that I wanted to see if there is an SSIS tranformation that would allow me to switch the Null to empty string (and still use the same column).

Answer 1

Use the derived column. You would then select replace 'your_column_name' from the derived column drop down and then populate the expression property with this code:

ISNULL( [your_column_name] ) ? " " : [your_column_name]

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Something similar to this might do the trick for you: it's actually an example of doing the reverse operation (from empty string to NULL) but at least shows the conditional operator in use.

http://mgarner.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/return-a-null-dt_str-in-a-conditional-statement/