Nulls

Nulls in Internet Object

A Null in Internet Object represents the absence of a value or an explicitly undefined state. Null is a scalar primitive used to indicate missing, unknown, or intentionally empty data.

Null values in Internet Object support both compact and verbose representations to balance readability and space efficiency.

Syntax

A null value can be expressed in two forms:

null = compactNull | verboseNull
compactNull = "N"
verboseNull = "null"

Structural Characters

Symbol	Name	Unicode	Description
N	Uppercase N	U+004E	Compact representation of null
null	Keyword null	Multiple	Verbose representation of null

Valid Forms

N                    # Compact null
null                 # Verbose null

Optional Behaviors

Literal and Alternate Forms

Internet Object supports two equivalent representations for null values:

• Compact form: N (recommended)

• Verbose form: null

N        # ✅ Recommended compact form
null     # ✅ Verbose form (equivalent to N)

Empty Representation

Null explicitly represents the absence of a value, distinct from empty strings or empty arrays.

N        # Null value
""       # Empty string (different from null)
[]       # Empty array (different from null)

Invalid Forms

n         # ❌ Lowercase not allowed
NULL      # ❌ All caps not allowed
Null      # ❌ Mixed case not allowed
nil       # ❌ Alternative keywords not allowed
undefined # ❌ Alternative keywords not allowed

See Also

• Values

• Schema for Null Handling