Unable to construct external null string

wdudek · Post by **wdudek** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:22 pm

I have a sequential file stage, used as an input as well as an output. Previously there were no problems with this, but somewhere today I have managed to break it. When I run the job or try and open the output like I get the following message

TaxVendor..VendorRecord.strVendRecOrder: DSD.SEQOpen Unable to construct external null string for column 1.

I have been playing with the default padding, so that it will be blank space instead of the default # on null columns, could this have caused the problem?

Any thoughts on this would be great
Thanks,
Bill

wdudek · Post by **wdudek** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:15 pm

Ok, I fixed the problem but it would be great if someone could explain it. I had changed the default NULL padding from # to 000, trying to get an empty string. Changing this back has resolved the issue. Can someone explain to me what the default null padding is?

kcbland · Post by **kcbland** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:26 pm

If the field is blank it will pad it with whatever you want. I don't know how you got the error mesasge, but you can supply the 3-digit ASCII number for fields when specifying delimiters or pad characters or quote characters etc. 032 is a space, 009 is a tab, blah blah blah

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 2:35 pm

And '000' is a null. Some options interpret that to mean "I don't want this", but not the Padding character in the Sequential file stage.

asitagrawal · Post by **asitagrawal** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:53 pm

Hi,

I am facing the same problem today.. but I do not understand the soultion and the problem.

In my case, the output file is being created in EBCDIC and the column was initially defined as Decimal data type and default padding charatcer as #. Now after changing it to NVarChar , it started givign the error. It worled fine after I removed default padding character .

I am confused with whats has happened ??

Please help me in understanding this.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 3:31 pm

Is this latest incarnation a server job or a parallel job? The original post was a server job; your description suggests parallel to me. If so please start your new thread in the Parallel forum.