Question

Is there a quick way to change all fields in a table that are null to just empty fields. I have many columns so wondered if there was a way to do it by table rather than column by column.

I need something like

update table 1 
set * = '' 
where * is null

but obviously this is incorrect syntax

Answer 1

This code will generate update statements list, you have to only run it:

SELECT  'update '+ so.name+' set '+sc.name+'= '''' where '+sc.name+' is null '   
FROM sysobjects so
JOIN syscolumns sc ON so.id = sc.id
JOIN systypes st ON sc.xtype=st.xtype  
where so.type = 'U'
and st.name in('varchar','char')
--and so.name = 'tab' <--- if you need update only one table

Here (sql fiddle) you can see how it works.