BinaryFormat.Null

Binary

A binary format that reads zero bytes and returns null.

Syntax

BinaryFormat.Null(binary as binary) as any

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Description
`binary`	`binary`	Yes	The binary data (no bytes are consumed).

Return Value

function — A binary format function that reads zero bytes and returns null.

Remarks

BinaryFormat.Null is a binary format specifier that reads zero bytes from the binary stream and returns null. It does not advance the read position.

This is useful as a placeholder in composite binary formats like BinaryFormat.Record or BinaryFormat.Choice where a field needs to exist in the result but does not correspond to any actual data in the binary stream. It can also be used in BinaryFormat.Group to skip or ignore certain tagged items.

Examples

Example 1: Use BinaryFormat.Null in a record

let
    binaryData = #binary({0x01, 0x02}),
    format = BinaryFormat.Record([
        First = BinaryFormat.Byte,
        Padding = BinaryFormat.Null,
        Second = BinaryFormat.Byte
    ])
in
    format(binaryData)

Compatibility

✓ Power BI Desktop✓ Power BI Service✓ Excel Desktop✓ Excel Online✓ Dataflows✓ Fabric Notebooks