Problem with INITIAL VALUES in appended structures

[Former Member]

Hi All, I've added some new fields (char) in a append structure witch is included in an existing standard database table (BUT000). If I append the fields without activating the INITIAL Flag, selects of the table are not correct because the value of the fields on the database are not initial. Results of a selection would be like the follow:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM but000 INTO cnt

WHERE yfield EQ space.

Result with yfield EQ space -> 5 (these are new entries, created after appending fields)

Result with yfield NE space -> 0

The correct result should be more the 1 mio entries.

So Iu2019ve to activate the INITIAL Flag in the append structure. I've done that and after that I activated the structure and automatically with it the depending tables where the structure is included. I awaited, that the INITIAL-Flags from the structure are 'transferred' in the table and there is a correct initial state on the database. But there is nothing. Neither are the flags in the table activated nor is the state in the database correct. In the append structure directly the INITIAL-Flags are still activated. A separate activation about database-utilities didnu2019t solve the problem. Knows anybody, where the problem is?

[franois_henrotte]

when you appended fields to table structure, and activated the table, some space has been reserved for additional fields BUT they have not been filled (not even filled with space characters)

so you would do a selection with SQL : newfield IS NULL OR newfield EQ space