CODEWITHSUNDEEP
language-agnosticnullterminology
Luke Hutton
Luke Hutton

Reputation: 10722

What is the origin (languague derived from) of NULL?

A bit off topic but what is the origin behind NULL?

I sent an email to a French speaking customer containing "thank you for bringing in your NULL 'item'".

Apparently in French, NULL (NUL) translates to:

nul, nulle /nyl/

I. adjective

(familiar) [personne] hopeless, useless;

[travail, étude] worthless;

[film, roman] trashy (colloquial);

Oops, I insulted them. Perhaps of French origin?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 244

Answers (4)

Mathias E.
Mathias E.

Reputation: 471

I'm french, "Nul" is widely used as useless or worthless.

If your customer is used to reading your messages in english, it should be OK (especially if he works in IT domain).

Upvotes: 1

Laurence Gonsalves
Laurence Gonsalves

Reputation: 143154

"Null" is an English word. According to my dictionary it means invalid, non-existant, or without character or expression. Also according to my dictionary (Oxford dictionary of Current English) it derives from Latin, which could mean it got to English by way of French.

Upvotes: 1

Fred Foo
Fred Foo

Reputation: 363567

Etymology

From Middle French nul, from Latin nullus.

Noun

null (plural nulls)

  1. A non-existent or empty value or set of values.
  2. Zero quantity of expressions; nothing.
  3. (computing) the ASCII or Unicode character (␀), represented by a zero value, that indicates no character and is sometimes used as a string terminator.
  4. (computing) the attribute of an entity that has no valid value.

Since no date of birth was entered for the patient, his age is null.

Adjective

null (comparative more null, superlative most null)

  1. Having no legal validity, "null and void"
  2. insignificant
  3. absent or non-existent
  4. (mathematics) of the null set
  5. (mathematics) of or comprising a value of precisely zero
  6. (genetics, of a mutation) causing a complete loss of gene function, amorphic.

Source: Wiktionary.

Apparently Tony Hoare (of quicksort fame) introduced the concept of null values in computing. He later called that his "billion-dollar mistake" referring to the damage bugs involving null pointers have caused over the decades.

Upvotes: 3

Stephane Rolland
Stephane Rolland

Reputation: 39906

From the Latin Nullus == "Nothing"

In french, Nul, mainly means equal to zero, none existent, and by familiar extension, of little importance, or worthless.

Upvotes: 1

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