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Issue #3446

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Using null=True with CharField and TextField is a no-op and recommended against by the Django & DRF docs

Added by dalley about 6 years ago. Updated about 3 years ago.

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MODIFIED
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Normal
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Severity:
2. Medium
Version - Python:
Platform Release:
3.0.0
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Yes
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No
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No
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Description

Using null=True with CharField and TextField is recommended against and is also essentially a no-op. blank=True captures what I think we actually want.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ref/models/fields/#null

If True, Django will store empty values as NULL in the database. Default is False.

Avoid using null on string-based fields such as CharField and TextField. If a string-based field has null=True, that means it has two possible values for “no data”: NULL, and the empty string. In most cases, it’s redundant to have two possible values for “no data;” the Django convention is to use the empty string, not NULL. One exception is when a CharField has both unique=True and blank=True set. In this situation, null=True is required to avoid unique constraint violations when saving multiple objects with blank values.

For both string-based and non-string-based fields, you will also need to set blank=True if you wish to permit empty values in forms, as the null parameter only affects database storage (see blank).

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/ref/models/fields/#blank

If True, the field is allowed to be blank. Default is False.

Note that this is different than null. null is purely database-related, whereas blank is validation-related. If a field has blank=True, form validation will allow entry of an empty value. If a field has blank=False, the field will be required.

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