Handling NULL values while using handlebars

NULL values in the export records are being translated to empty strings " " after evaluating handlebars. This may cause issues while importing records if the column type is not text-based. There are several ways to handle this issue.

Note: Redshift will throw an error if the column type differs from the provided value.

Use an IF…ELSE handlebar

Use an IF…ELSE handlebar to transform an empty string to a NULL handlebar.

  INSERT into tableName(fieldNameOne, fieldNameTwo) values({{#if record.fieldNameOne}} {{record.fieldNameOne}} {{else}} NULL {{/if}}, {{record.fieldNameTwo}})

Provide NULL in a default values section

1. Create an RDBMS database or data warehouse import.
2. Provide the modelMetadata with NULL as the default (no quotes: " ") or NULL for some fields that won't get exported.

3. Import the data.
4. Verify that the imported data contains the NULL values for the respective columns.