Set Field to Null in Sql Server Enterprise Manager Result Set

Sunday, October 19, 2003

Have you ever edited a result set in Enterprise Manager and wished that there was a way to set a field to null? Your in luck because there is a way.

If you are in the field you want to set null you just hit CTRL-0 and leave the field and magically the field has a null value, of course you can only do this on fields that are actually nullable.

Maybe I'm the only person that didn't know about this but I posted this just incase someone else can benefit from this.

17 Comments

cool! i never heard about!

v.nrg - Monday, October 20, 2003 5:18:00 PM

I've never heard about it. But could you explain further to me what you meant?

Thanks Wes.

Great tips!

Blog Rocks!!!

Ahmat - Friday, October 31, 2003 12:07:00 PM

GREAT THANKS A LOT

Julio Cesar De Salvo - Friday, January 16, 2004 3:31:00 PM

What about programmatically changing a numerical field from a number back to NULL?

Bill - Thursday, April 8, 2004 7:29:00 PM

I know how to do it in .Net. If you are using a dataset just set the value to DBNull.Value. I think that exists in the System.Data.SqlTypes namespace.

Wes - Thursday, April 8, 2004 7:32:00 PM

How to enter a empty string in EM? If the field is NULL-able, and has not other default value, then the default is NULL. But how to get an empty string ('') there?

W - Thursday, April 15, 2004 11:35:00 PM

What I have done before is enter some text then leave the row, then go back and delete the text. It will leave the empty string instead of null.

Wes - Thursday, April 15, 2004 11:53:00 PM

That seems pretty good. I hope there's also a ctrl-something that would enter empty string directly.

W - Friday, April 16, 2004 4:16:00 PM

How about making a whole column null is that possible like

update table

set column_name = NULL

??

R - Thursday, May 13, 2004 4:24:00 AM

Guys it much easier than expected, Simply press CTRL + 0

Dwaik - Sunday, December 10, 2006 12:59:41 PM

I have been looking for this for so long. Thanks.

Longmatch - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:37:53 PM

Thanks for posting this.. VERY Helpful..

esank - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 5:15:25 PM

Thanks! That was very helpful.

Rachel - Wednesday, August 6, 2008 7:14:48 PM

This didn't work for me. Is this specific to SQL 2005? I selected the table and want to reset the value to Null. Is this different?

Chantay - Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:34:09 PM

I have got the solution
just by use the method

int MyTableField.value = IsBDNull.value.toString(); in C#

Shah Nawaz - Thursday, December 18, 2008 4:43:42 PM

UPDATE table1 SET field1 = Null WHERE ....

tested in SQL 2k5

Rawler - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 4:12:45 PM

I know it's an old thread, but I wanted to say that in SQLServer 2008, this (CTRL/0) worked great for me. I would also like to know that the update statement one user wrote,

"UPDATE table1 SET field1 = Null WHERE ...."

isn't really setting the field to NULL. It's putting a value in there and the value is made up of the letters N U L L, but the value of the field is not NULL, as in it has no value.

BWW - Monday, May 3, 2010 7:25:58 PM

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