How to set NULL for IntegerField instead of setting 0?

Question

I'm uploading some data from an excel file using xlrd and turning that data into models (with mainly IntegerField values) in Django. My excel file has a bunch of missing data. Unfortunately, these missing data are converted to the value of 0 in my models, instead of NULL. This means that when my Person model doesn't have an age, that age gets recorded as 0, instead of as NULL.

What's the best way to change this? I've tried doing this:

age = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)

But the blank fields still get set to 0 by default.

DB backend is MySQL. Don't have a default set. Should I do something like models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True, default=NULL)? — jyli7, May 13 '13 at 17:03
Hmm, getting the same problem even after default=None. Any other ideas? Thanks. — jyli7, May 13 '13 at 17:09
Why do you have `blank=True`? Are you planning to show it in a form? — Paulo Bu, May 13 '13 at 17:10
`null=True` will only matter if it's a blank string, not `0`. In your script why not have `age = age if not 0 else ''`. With `yourModel.age = age`, if it's an empty string it will be saved in your db as `NULL` as [shown here](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#null) — Ewan, May 13 '13 at 17:26
Did you do run a `syncdb` or schema migration after making the changes to the model? — Ngenator, May 13 '13 at 21:50
Yeah, I actually dropped the table in question and re-ran the initial migration with South. — jyli7, May 13 '13 at 22:18

score 39 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 22 '18 at 10:57

39

Instead of using

age = models.IntegerField()

use

age = models.IntegerField(blank=True, null=True)

When we specify

blank=True, null=True

it will allow you to store null in that column

edited Jan 22 '18 at 10:57

jamylak

128,818
30
231
230

answered May 14 '13 at 12:45

pass-by-ref

1,288
2
12
20

I am doing this and trying to retrieve the data of the integer field on an android app, where it shows up as 0. Is this an ORM problem or is it transmitted as 0? – praxmon Mar 26 '15 at 15:09
I don't think this is ORM problem. Does your schema has a default value set to 0? – pass-by-ref Feb 16 '16 at 13:29
6

This is backwards - specifying null=True *allows* NULL to be stored in the column. – Cole Maclean Jun 07 '17 at 17:54
Can we set the default value for `IntergerField` to null or for it to be null we shouldn't pass any value at all? – Ajay Lingayat Nov 05 '21 at 11:58

How to set NULL for IntegerField instead of setting 0?

1 Answers1

Linked