Question

In MS-Access database, table called NewTable3

colname is a text column containing lot of empty cells or blanks.

i want to put ? character in empty cells . when i run the query

UPDATE NewTable3 SET colname = '?' WHERE ISNULL(colname) ; 

This query updates 0 records why . what is wrong with this query

Answer 1

Two quick things:

1) Try putting the colname in square brackets.
2) Remember that empty cells (Nulls) and empty strings (“”) are different.

Together:

UPDATE NewTable3 SET [colname] = "?" WHERE ISNULL([colname]) OR [colname] = "";

Also, are you running the query in Access itself, or just using the Access engine and using the data in another program/via a VBA script? It can make a difference.