Why sys.columns.is_nullable can be null?

Question

I'm writing a query that will be mapped to a C# class, and when getting the type of the query's columns, it results that some columns in sys.columns can be NULL

• is_nullable
• is_replicated
• is_merge_published
• is_dts_replicated

And in the same sys.columns there are others that are NOT NULL

• is_rowguidcol
• is_identity
• is_computed

NOTE: Those columns are bit

I think they should always be NOT NULL, because SQL Server must know the columns' properties.

So, why some/those columns in sys.columns can be NULL and/or in which cases they will be?

Answer 1

You are right that it is not possible for the outcome to ever be NULL. From quick investigation, take a look at the definition of sys.columns. If I run:

SELECT OBJECT_DEFINITION(OBJECT_ID(N'sys.columns'));

I see this:

...
sysconv(bit, 1 - (c.status & 1)) AS is_nullable,        -- CPM_NOTNULL
...
FROM sys.syscolpars c
...

If I change to a DAC connection, I can look at the columns here:

SELECT name, is_nullable
  FROM sys.all_columns
  WHERE [object_id] = OBJECT_ID(N'sys.syscolpars')
  AND name = N'status';

Results:

name    is_nullable
------  -----------
status  0

So the source is definitely not nullable, right? Yet if you do the same for sys.columns, columns involving expressions around c.status are marked as is_nullable = 1. That's more a reflection of the expressions / data types involved than the actual possibility of a NULL value.

I initially thought maybe SYSCONV() did something differently from CONVERT() (we can't use the former to check, but I thought maybe it might internally work more like TRY_CONVERT()). This is not the case, in fact this is quite easy to reproduce even without any internals knowledge:

CREATE TABLE dbo.foo(bit_column bit NOT NULL);
GO

CREATE VIEW dbo.bar 
AS                                                      -- nullable?
  SELECT bit_col1 = CONVERT(bit, 1 - (bit_column & 1)), -- YES
         bit_col2 = bit_column & 1, -- no convert       -- NO
         bit_col3 = 1 - bit_column & 1                  -- YES
  FROM dbo.foo;
GO

SELECT name, is_nullable
  FROM sys.dm_exec_describe_first_result_set
       (N'SELECT * FROM dbo.bar', NULL, 1);
GO

DROP TABLE dbo.foo;
DROP VIEW dbo.bar;

Results:

name      is_nullable
--------  -----------
bit_col1  1
bit_col2  0
bit_col3  1

All that said, I don't know what advice to give you. You could conditionally hard-code that this specific column is not nullable in spite of what the metadata says, or you could play it safe and use what the metadata tells you (which will future-proof you in the event the underlying definitions change in future versions).