Zend_Db is ignoring my default field values!

Question

Hi,
I'm using Zend Framework 1.7 with a MySQL 5.0 database for a project I'm doing. Part of the system is a longish form that asks a user for various dates (in dd/mm/yyyy format) as well as some integer fields.

In my MySQL table, all these fields have a default of null. When I come to save the form data with a function in my model (which extends Zend_Db_Table), any blank integers fields are set to 0, and any blank date fields are set to 0000-00-00 - in both cases, they should be null.

I believe this is because Zend_Db_Table->insert() is quoting all values, including blank ones. Is there any way I can alter this behaviour? I'm currently having to loop through groups of fields, setting them to null as appropriate.

Cheers,
Matt

Answer 1

Try:

$data['shouldBeEmtpy'] = new Zend_Db_Expr('NULL');

Answer 2

vartec - thanks for your help. Your ideas gave me a good starting point. I've developed it further, extending Zend_Db_Table, adding a function that will suck the column metadata out of MySQL, and use this to set default values. I've posted a rough draft of it below. I haven't made any attempt to simplify it yet, and have only covered the field types I need immediately. Hopefully, it might help others having the same problem.

public function reformatData($array) {
    if (!is_array($array)) {
     return false;
    }

    $cols = $this->info(Zend_Db_Table_Abstract::METADATA);

    if (is_array($cols)) {
     foreach ($cols as $col) {
      if (array_key_exists($col['COLUMN_NAME'], $array)) {
       switch ($col['DATA_TYPE']) {
        case 'int': case 'tinyint':
         if ($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] == '') {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = new Zend_Db_Expr('null');
         }
         else {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']];
         }
         break;

        case 'date':
         if ($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] == '') {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = new Zend_Db_Expr('null');
         }
         elseif(!Zend_Date::isDate($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']], 'YYYY-MM-dd')) {
          $date = new Zend_Date($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']], null, 'en_GB');
             $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $date->toString('YYYY-MM-dd'); 
         }
         else {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']];
         }
         break;

        case 'datetime':
         if ($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] == '') {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = new Zend_Db_Expr('null');
         }
         elseif(!Zend_Date::isDate($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']], 'YYYY-MM-dd HH:MM')) {
          $date = new Zend_Date($array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']], null, 'en_GB');
             $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $date->toString('YYYY-MM-dd HH:MM'); 
         }
         else {
          $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']];
         }
         break;

        default:
         $newArray[$col['COLUMN_NAME']] = $array[$col['COLUMN_NAME']];
         break;
       }     
      }
     }
     return $newArray;
    }
    else {
     return false;
    }
}