Variable default values

Variables get a default value when defined.

By default, variables are initialized to a value depending on the variable data type.

For example, when defining an INTEGER variable, it gets zero as default value, while a DECIMAL variable is set to NULL:

MAIN
    DEFINE v1 INTEGER, v2 DECIMAL(10,2)
    DISPLAY v1  -- Shows "0"
    DISPLAY NVL(v2,"null") -- Shows "null"
END MAIN

The next table lists default initialization values for each primitive data type:

Table 1. Data type specific default values for variables
Data type	Default Value
`CHAR`	`NULL`
`VARCHAR`	`NULL`
`STRING`	`NULL`
`BIGINT`	Zero
`INTEGER`	Zero
`SMALLINT`	Zero
`TINYINT`	Zero
`BOOLEAN`	`FALSE`
`FLOAT`	Zero
`SMALLFLOAT`	Zero
`DECIMAL`	`NULL`
`MONEY`	`NULL`
`DATE`	`1899-12-31` (zero days since Unix epoch -1 day)
`DATETIME`	`NULL`
`INTERVAL`	`NULL`
`TEXT`	`NULL`, must use `LOCATE`
`BYTE`	`NULL`, must use `LOCATE`

Note:

When adding new elements in a DYNAMIC ARRAY, the element fields are initialized to NULL, no matter the data type. For more details, see DYNAMIC ARRAY usage.