How do I build a SQL insert query that allows me to insert a blank into a numeric field? - sql

Question

I have some values from an Excel workbook that I'm adding into an array. Eventually, I loop through the array and build a sql insert query (using Excel VBA) with the values stored into the array.
I debugged the sql query string I built and it appears as this:
INSERT INTO RAPTOR_BG.Project_Attributes (
P-Key,
Contract_Currency,
FX_Rate,
Rate_Discount,
Study_Award,
BLD,
Submitted_Date
)
VALUES (
'1111111|7-22-2020',
'USD',
'0.91',
'',
'5-29-2019',
'',
'7-22-2020'
);
Both Rate_Discount and BLD are numeric and won't accept ' '. Is there a way to get sql to accept this blank as a null? I did some research and I saw that some people have had success using a case statement, but all of the examples I've seen use variables or something like this (#SomeName) found in the answer here.
I've tried adapting my code to fit the examples I've seen by doing the below, but it kicked an error stating that at least one of the result expressions in a CASE specification must be an expression other than the NULL constant.
*insert statement from before*
VALUES (
'1111111|7-22-2020',
'USD',
'0.91',
CASE WHEN '' is null then null end,
'5-29-2019',
'',
'7-22-2020'
);
I'm going to be running my code on several hundred workbooks and some of these values will be blank and others won't be so I can't necessarily hardcode a null instead of the ' '. Is there a way to work around getting the numeric fields to accept a blank as null?

Answer 1

Ok, I figured this one out. Please find the answer below.
INSERT INTO RAPTOR_BG.Project_Attributes (
P-Key,
Contract_Currency,
FX_Rate,
Rate_Discount,
Study_Award,
BLD,
Submitted_Date
)
VALUES (
'1111111|7-22-2020',
'USD',
'0.91',
CASE WHEN '' is null then 0 end,
'5-29-2019',
CASE WHEN '' is null then 0 end,
'7-22-2020'
);