Question

I’m trying to use PHP with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and it makes me want to die. I have a stored procedure that works perfectly via FreeTDS that I run in the terminal on my Mac, works perfectly in Visual Studio, and works perfectly via ASP.NET on a FrontPage server. It fails miserably through PHP 5.3.2 on an Ubuntu web server, however. In the procedure, I set up a few temp tables and insert into them from a giant table, which invariably contains some nulls here and there. The error I get is

Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'Notes', table 'tempdb.dbo.#termtable1__00000000BE0B'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.

only with a billion more underscores. Someone posted this as a bug here, but it hasn’t got much attention. My best attempt was specifying a NULL constraint on every column of every temp table, but it didn’t help. Also tried SET ANSI_NULLS ON. I don’t have much access to any of these servers as far as patches and drivers go, nor do I have a heck of a lot of access to the people who do. I don’t think they’re going to want to do much to help me out, but if someone has a really good idea, I’ll try to get it done. Oh, and, it should be noted that the same procedure in SquirrelSQL (via Microsoft JDBC driver) gives bizarre, half-correct results. Thanks.

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EDIT:

I fixed the link, actually just copied and pasted the wrong URL altogether. Here’s the T-SQL where the temp table gets declared. I tried putting NULL after each datatype. There are five of them just like this.

    CREATE TABLE #termtable1
        (SerialNumber varchar(50), SR varchar(50), LeaseTag varchar(50), Component varchar(50), 
        Fund int, Org int, Program varchar(50), FirstName varchar(80), LastName varchar(30), 
        Department varchar(50), Location varchar(50), UserID nvarchar(20), Notes nvarchar(MAX), 
        Manufacturer varchar(50), Model varchar(50), Maintenance bit, OrderNumber varchar(50), 
        ContractNumber varchar(50), ParentTag varchar(50));

They get inserted into via dynamic SQL, which is why I can’t use a table variable instead (scope issues):

DECLARE @sqlstring nvarchar(MAX);
DECLARE @params nvarchar(200) = N'@term1 varchar(100), @term2 varchar(100), @term3 varchar(100), @term4 varchar(100), @term5 varchar(100)';
DECLARE qryCursor CURSOR FOR SELECT * FROM @terms;
OPEN qryCursor;
FETCH NEXT FROM qryCursor INTO @term1, @term2, @term3, @term4, @term5;
DECLARE @termrow int = 1;
WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0)
BEGIN
    SET @sqlstring = N'INSERT INTO #termtable' + CAST(@termrow AS varchar) + N' SELECT * FROM dbo.NewUserInfo WHERE ';
    DECLARE @i int = 1;
    WHILE (@i <= 5)
    BEGIN
        SET @sqlstring = @sqlstring +
        N'(SerialNumber LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'SR LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'LeaseTag LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Component LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Fund LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Org LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Program LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'FirstName LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'LastName LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Department LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Location LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Notes LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Manufacturer LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Model LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'Maintenance LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'OrderNumber LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'ContractNumber LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N' OR ' +
         N'ParentTag LIKE @term' + CAST(@i AS varchar) + N') OR ';
        SET @i = @i + 1;
    END
    SET @sqlstring = @sqlstring + N'(0 = 1)';
    EXECUTE sp_executesql @sqlstring, @params, @term1=@term1, @term2=@term2, @term3=@term3, @term4=@term4, @term5=@term5;
    SET @termrow = @termrow + 1;
    FETCH NEXT FROM qryCursor INTO @term1, @term2, @term3, @term4, @term5;
END

The PHP is simple. $result = mssql_query("EXEC QuickSearch '" . $search . "';"); It only gives the error when it finds a NULL in the NewUserInfo table. Frequently in “Notes.”

Answer 1

Ok guys, I’m sorry. Putting NULL after every datatype did work. I must have missed a couple when I tried it the first time. The table declaration should be like this:

CREATE TABLE #termtable1
        (SerialNumber varchar(50) NULL, SR varchar(50) NULL, LeaseTag varchar(50) NULL, Component varchar(50) NULL, 
        Fund int NULL, Org int NULL, Program varchar(50) NULL, FirstName varchar(80) NULL, LastName varchar(30) NULL, 
        Department varchar(50) NULL, Location varchar(50) NULL, UserID varchar(20) NULL, Notes varchar(MAX) NULL, 
        Manufacturer varchar(50) NULL, Model varchar(50) NULL, Maintenance bit NULL, OrderNumber varchar(50) NULL, 
        ContractNumber varchar(50) NULL, ParentTag varchar(50) NULL);