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by NovemberWhiskey 1468 days ago
Neither?

If the user responses are in a table of (field_id, value_selected, ...) then you just use an outer join vs the available field_id for the form and get back NULLs automatically for the unpopulated selections.

That way if you (say) add new selections to forms that are partially complete, reasonable things happen without any further logic.

Why record data to say you don't have data?