We are running DBMS mail merge. A column of the table may be NULL.

We find that if we use the substitution for that column, and its value is
NULL, then the substitution is ignored.

For example:

 //TO DD *
 SELECT SALUTATION, FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME FROM ....
 /*
 //DATA DD *,EOF
 ...
 Dear &SALUTATION; &FIRST_NAME; &LAST_NAME;,
 ...

This works fine when SALUTATION is not NULL. But when it is NULL, the
substitution text itself is printed, e.g.:

 Dear &SALUTATION; John Smith,

I tried using a .BB conditional block to check the value of SALUTATION but
it does not seem that I can check for NULL.

Seems to me this is a bug, or at least unfriendly behavior.

Is there any workaround for this (short of running two separate DISTRIBUTE
jobs)?

--
Dave Rubin