Assuming that you're using DBI to do SQL queries, you could have the SQL statement return something suitable in place of a null (empty) field value -- e.g.: 
select NVL(some_column,0) from some_table where some_condition...

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The "NVL( column, value )" expression in SQL (in oracle, at least) will yield "value" in the case where "column" is null.

In reply to Re: use of uninitialized values by graff
in thread use of uninitialized values by Baz

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