Null value handling in LOVs

Question

Has null value handling improved any in HTMLDB 1.6?
If my LOV has "Display null"=Yes (default null value is %null%) and I need to pass in a database NULL to a After Submit process, I need to do add a After Submit computation for each of these LOVs with something like
CASE WHEN :P1_ITEM='%null%' THEN NULL ELSE :P1_ITEM END
I have a couple dozen LOVs on a page and it is getting tiring to go and do this on each and every one!
Is there a better way?
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi Patrick,
we are currently moving over to Apex 4.02 and are doing some smoke tests on our existing apps.
I have come across an issue with your generic solution to the %null% issue above (incidently, for a long time it's the first piece of code I include when I start a new app... thank you!)
We found that a lot of our SQL Query (PL/SQL function body returning SQL query) reports were failing due to the session state of the LOVs still having a session state of %null% even after the RemoveNulls application process had run.
After debugging your generic process we found that the LOV_NULL_VALUE in the APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_ITEMS view has changed from NULL to '%null%'.
so the fix was as below:-
BEGIN
    FOR rItem IN
      ( SELECT ITEM_NAME
          FROM APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_ITEMS
         WHERE APPLICATION_ID   = TO_NUMBER(:APP_ID)
           AND PAGE_ID          IN (TO_NUMBER(:APP_PAGE_ID), 0)
           AND LOV_DISPLAY_NULL = 'Yes'
           AND LOV_DEFINITION   IS NOT NULL
-- change here
           AND LOV_NULL_VALUE  = '%null' || '%'
    LOOP
        IF V(rItem.ITEM_NAME) = '%null' || '%'
        THEN
            Apex_Util.set_session_state(rItem.ITEM_NAME, NULL);
        END IF;
    END LOOP;
END;Cheers,
Gus.. (always a fan of your work!)