CFINPUT with datefield type issue

Question

I have a personal information form that has a hire date entry
field. I would like to make the field optional, yet I have to enter
a hire date as I get an error if I dont. The database autofills the
hire date field with the word "null" so if I submit the form
without entering a date, I get an error message saying: "Error
"null" is an invalud date or time string."
Also, in my database, I have Hire Date as a type DATE, null
is selected, and default is 0000-00-00. On a side note, even though
I have 0000-00-00 entered as the default, the word "null" still
populates the hire date field on the page.
Here is my code:
<cfformgroup type="horizontal" visible="yes" enabled="yes"
style="marginLeft:-74;" >
<cfinput type="Datefield" name="HireDate" label="Hire
Date:" width="80" bind="{contactList.selectedItem.HireDate}"
onchange="UpdateSelect(HireDate, selectYear1);"/>
<cfselect name="selectYear1" width="80" label=""
onchange="setStartYear(HireDate, selectYear1);">
<cfoutput>
<option value="">Pick Year</option>
<cfloop index="i" from="1935" to="#thisyear#">
<option value="#i#">#i#</option>
</cfloop>
</cfoutput>
</cfselect>
</cfformgroup>
Any help with this problem would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Nick Butler

Answer 1

Hi Nick,
I am not sure which insert method you are using for inserting
your form information into the database. I prefer to insert
my
form information via a <cfquery>.
Below is the code I use in my forms and have not encountered
any issues with blank date fields being inserted into a DB.
<cfquery name="qry_name" datasource="yourdatasource">
Insert Into tbl_name (
db_field,
hiredate,
db_field)
Values(
nullif(<cfqueryparam cfsqltype="CF_SQL_VARCHAR"
value="#form.form_field#">,''),
nullif(<cfqueryparam cfsqltype="CF_SQL_DATE"
value="#form.hiredate#">,''),
nullif(<cfqueryparam cfsqltype="CF_SQL_VARCHAR"
value="#form.form_field#">,'')
</cfquery>
With the above code, should the person leave the hire date
field blank, it will
insert a null value into the db field. If the person enters a
date, it will insert the
date into the db field formatted as yyyy-mm-dd.
Leonard B