[TYPO3-dev] DBAL problems with pages.fe_group

[Martin Kutschker]

Hi!

The FE group access control is defined as such:

TCA:
   'fe_group' => Array (
    'exclude' => 1,
    'label' => 'LLL:EXT:lang/locallang_general.php:LGL.fe_group',
    'config' => Array (
     'type' => 'select',
     'size' => 5,
     'maxitems' => 20,
     'items' => Array (
      Array('LLL:EXT:lang/locallang_general.php:LGL.hide_at_login', -1),
      Array('LLL:EXT:lang/locallang_general.php:LGL.any_login', -2),
      Array('LLL:EXT:lang/locallang_general.php:LGL.usergroups', '--div--')
     ),
     'exclusiveKeys' => '-1,-2',
     'foreign_table' => 'fe_groups',
    )
   ),

SQL:
   fe_group varchar(100) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL

The odd thing is that the default value is the illegal id 0. Does TYPO3 
rely on this '0', instead of using '' meaning an empty list?

Because this is is a problem for Oracle. When tyring to change a page 
TYPO3/DBAL will use this statement:

UPDATE "pages" SET "storage_pid"='0', "fe_group"='', "tstamp"='1151413939' 
WHERE "uid" = 33

But '' is NULL for Oracle, so we get a ORA-01407 error.

I can do this (modifying didn't work?):

ALTER TABLE "pages" DROP COLUMN "fe_group"
ALTER TABLE "pages" ADD ("fe_group" VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT '0'

But now an UPDATE with "fe_group"='' will result in ''. I think that Myslq 
still would try to enter '0' but that doesn't help.

So what is best option?

a) Simply to remove the NOT NULL and the then useless DEFAULT '0'?
b) Adding TCA options that enforce the SQL default in situations like this?
c) Add DB triggers that turn '' into '0' for such fields?

I'm for a) If the field is a list then '' is an empty list not '0'. But is 
the Core ready for this?

Masi