diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4d7c3e8b3..509e04d7c 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
+2002-11-19  Havoc Pennington  <hp@pobox.com>
+
+	Should really fix #98303
+	
+	* src/prefs.c (meta_prefs_change_workspace_name): add 
+	bad hack to treat empty string the same as null
+
+	* src/menu.c (get_workspace_name_with_accel): allocate one more
+	than the length of "name" so we have room for a nul byte (and
+	don't malloc(0) on empty strings). Also some formatting cleanups.
+
 2002-11-19  Havoc Pennington  <hp@pobox.com>
 
 	* src/window.c (meta_window_client_message): do a
diff --git a/src/menu.c b/src/menu.c
index ea340b9ea..335e965ba 100644
--- a/src/menu.c
+++ b/src/menu.c
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ activate_cb (GtkWidget *menuitem, gpointer data)
  * The calling code owns the string, and is reponsible to free the
  * memory after use.
  */
-static char *
+static char*
 get_workspace_name_with_accel (Display *display,
                                Window   xroot,
                                int      index)
@@ -148,6 +148,7 @@ get_workspace_name_with_accel (Display *display,
    * integer, insert a '_' before the number if it is less than 10 and
    * return it
    */
+  number = 0;
   if (sscanf (name, _("Workspace %d"), &number) == 1)
     {
       char *new_name;
@@ -171,24 +172,24 @@ get_workspace_name_with_accel (Display *display,
       char *new_name;
       const char *source;
       char *dest;
-      source = name;
+
       /*
        * Assume the worst case, that every character is a _
        */
-      dest = new_name = g_malloc0 (strlen (name) * 2);
+      new_name = g_malloc0 (strlen (name) * 2 + 1);
+
       /*
        * Now iterate down the strings, adding '_' to escape as we go
        */
+      dest = new_name;
+      source = name;
       while (*source != '\0')
         {
           if (*source == '_')
             *dest++ = '_';
           *dest++ = *source++;
         }
-      /*
-       * We don't free *name as we don't own it, and pass ownership of
-       * *new_name to the calling code.
-       */
+
       return new_name;
     }
 }
diff --git a/src/prefs.c b/src/prefs.c
index 3b55ca3ae..502506e03 100644
--- a/src/prefs.c
+++ b/src/prefs.c
@@ -1602,6 +1602,10 @@ meta_prefs_get_workspace_name (int i)
   g_return_val_if_fail (i >= 0 && i < MAX_REASONABLE_WORKSPACES, NULL);
 
   g_assert (workspace_names[i] != NULL);
+
+  meta_topic (META_DEBUG_PREFS,
+              "Getting workspace name for %d: \"%s\"\n",
+              i, workspace_names[i]);
   
   return workspace_names[i];
 }
@@ -1615,6 +1619,19 @@ meta_prefs_change_workspace_name (int         i,
   
   g_return_if_fail (i >= 0 && i < MAX_REASONABLE_WORKSPACES);
 
+  meta_topic (META_DEBUG_PREFS,
+              "Changing name of workspace %d to %s\n",
+              i, name ? name : "none");
+
+  /* This is a bad hack. We have to treat empty string as
+   * "unset" because the root window property can't contain
+   * null. So it gets empty string instead and we don't want
+   * that to result in setting the empty string as a value that
+   * overrides "unset".
+   */
+  if (name && *name == '\0')
+    name = NULL;
+  
   if ((name == NULL && workspace_names[i] == NULL) ||
       (name && workspace_names[i] && strcmp (name, workspace_names[i]) == 0))
     {