DB_DataObject and NULL values

hey I've come across a little problem while trying to update a row in the database with a NULL value. what I'm trying to do is basically this: $dbObject->Col1 = null; $dbObject->Col2 = null; $dbObject->update(); But what ends up happening is that no SQL gets generated for the 2 columns I've set to null. (code snippet pasted below) This is because the isset check on line 756 fails, and the is equal to null check on line 768 is never reached. I've done some tinkering and it appears that unset($var) and $var = null have both the same meaning in php. Is this a problem that can be corrected by tweaking some php settings? I haven't found anything in the unset() or isset() documentation that points to this being a possibility. Regardless of whether or not this can be fixed by a minor php tweak, I think the "correct" solution is to create a simple dbNULL class. This would look something like this: $dbObject->Col1 = dbNULL; $dbObject->Col2 = dbNULL; $dbObject->update(); DataObject.php:

768             if ($this->$k === dbNULL) {
769                 $settings .= "$k = NULL";
770             }

So now the !isset check would fail since $this->$k is actually set to something and the check to see if $this->$k should be NULL in the database would succeed. Am I on the right track here or have people found a better solution? --chris This is from DB_DataObject-0.19. DataObject.php:

735     function update($dataObject = false)
736     {
737         global $_DB_DATAOBJECT;
738         // connect will load the config!
739         $this->_connect();

740

741         $items = $this->_get_table();
742         $keys  = $this->_get_keys();

743

744         if (!$items) {
745             DB_DataObject::raiseError("update:No table definition

for {$this->__table}", DB_DATAOBJECT_ERROR_INVALIDCONFIG);

746             return false;
747         }
748         $datasaved = 1;
749         $settings  = '';

750 751 752

753         $__DB  =

&$_DB_DATAOBJECT['CONNECTIONS'][$this->_database_dsn_md5]; 754

755         foreach($items as $k => $v) {
756             if (!isset($this->$k)) {
757                 continue;
758             }
759             if (($dataObject !== false) && (@$dataObject->$k ==

$this->$k)) {

760                 continue;
761             }

762 763

764             if ($settings)  {
765                 $settings .= ', ';
766             }
767             /* special values ... at least null is handled...*/
768             if ($this->$k === null) {
769                 $settings .= "$k = NULL";
770             }