We've run into this with SQL-based mail merge. To get around it we
defined in our database or in our SQL query so that whenever there's a
null field, replace it with a space. So our default value for most of
our fields is " ".

Hope that helps.

Best,
Al Iverson

Dave wrote:
>
> 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

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