Better Visualization and Sorting for NULL values

[SIP] Proposal for Better Visualization and Sorting for NULL values in SQL Lab Results Table

Motivation

While working with a large, non-curated and diverse database consisting of many columns and rows per table I found myself painfully trying to distinguish null values from actual strings/numbers.

Whatsmore, by sorting columns that were supposed to be numerical, the null values sometimes took precedence over the order when I was trying to sort said columns.

Proposed Change

• If the value of a cell is null, it shows as NULL (italic and light gray) to easily distinguish it from other values in the results table.
• When sorting a column with NULL values, NULL values always come last regardless of the sorting order.

The change described above is already implemented in a forked local version we have of Apache Superset.

This change does not affect exporting CSV files.

New or Changed Public Interfaces

No change needed for any model, REST endpoint, deployment, or backend.

The only change is in the React Component FilterableTable The file can be found in

<root>/superset/assets/src/components/filterabletable/FilterableTable.jsx

The component generates the results table in SQL Lab queries and other visualizations where SQL tables are present.

New dependencies

No new dependencies

Migration Plan and Compatibility

No migration plan needed

Rejected Alternatives

Alternatives to better solutions are welcome.

[semantiDan]

@etr2460 , @mistercrunch Thank you for your comments and for contributing/creating this awesome open-source repository. As you can probably see, I’ve created a PR and referenced this ISSUE.

We have a bunch of other features we plan to add at a later time.

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