PostgreSQL error when bitvalue is false - php

Question

I am having a little trouble saving bit-values into my PostgreSQL-DB using PDO. Whenever the bit(bool) is false i get this error
Warning: PDOStatement::execute(): SQLSTATE[22026]: String data, length mismatch: 7
ERROR: bit string length 0 does not match type bit(1) in /var/www/html/application/models/Database.php on line 75
The code is a little complicated to show, but here is what goes into the DB-class.
UPDATE users SET name=:name,email=:email,address=:address,zip=:zip,joindate=:joindate,phone=:phone,password=:password,activationcode=:activationcode,birthdate=:birthdate,lastdigits=:lastdigits,driverlicense=:driverlicense,e_presentation=:e_presentation,e_showphone=:e_showphone,e_showaddress=:e_showaddress,e_radius=:e_radius,e_showinsearch=:e_showinsearch,w_presentation=:w_presentation,w_showphone=:w_showphone,w_showaddress=:w_showaddress,w_radius=:w_radius,w_showinsearch=:w_showinsearch WHERE id=:id
And the data that is bound to the parameters
Array ( [:name] => My Name [:email] => myemail#gmail.com [:address] => My Address [:zip] => 79133 [:joindate] => 2012-09-18 12:39:56.769584 [:phone] => 073 917 13 97 [:password] => c6d18ac44b378ff3cecf09d9ebec31ad301c4394d7e1sdfjksc81cd3fbf47777f8df0ac9f33d14da18d71b76fc9c3e1210cb2efcabf6ed66f779d [:activationcode] => [:birthdate] => 1993-08-05 [:lastdigits] => 5079 [:driverlicense] => 0 [:e_presentation] => Test [:e_showphone] => 1 [:e_showaddress] => 1 [:e_radius] => 10 [:e_showinsearch] => 1 [:w_presentation] => Test [:w_showphone] => 1 [:w_showaddress] => 1 [:w_radius] => 10 [:w_showinsearch] => 1 [:id] => 28 ) 1
A quick Google-search shows me that others had the same problem, but no solution to it.

Answer 1

Maybe you are better served with a boolean type instead of bit(1)?
If you actually need to convert a boolean value to bit(1), a direct cast doesn't work:
select FALSE::bit(1), TRUE::bit(1)
But this works:
select FALSE::int::bit(1), TRUE::int::bit(1)
Cast to integer first, an then to bit.

Answer 2

If we consider that a bit is a number that is either 1 or 0, then false in php is not a number.
<? echo false; ?> prints an empty string, not the number 0.
In a lot of other situations in php, 0 and false will be equivalent, but they're still not the same thing, and from the point of view of PostgreSQL, an empty string as the value of a bit is not acceptable.
The php code should convert false to 0 when passing the bit value to execute() or similar.
Using
$sth->bindParam(':param', $value, PDO::PARAM_INT);
would also work when $value is false, since that would force a conversion to 0.