in reply to Re: Re(2): (Ovid): uninitialized value in concatenation
in thread uninitialized value in concatenation

"... the sql is returning a '' value and the if statement is seeing it as being true."

This is not correct.

As written, the if statement is not testing for truth or falseness, but whether or not any rows were returned.

To accomplish what you seek, change the if statement to read:

if ( @$rv && $rv->[0] ) { # any NON-BLANK rows returned?

dmm