The fix for bug mdev-11488 introduced the virtual method
convert_to_basic_const_item for the class Item_cache.
The implementation of this method for the class Item_cache_str
was not quite correct: the server could crash if the cached item
was null.
A similar problem could appear for the implementation of
this method for the class Item_cache_decimal. Although I could not
reproduce the problem I decided to change the code appropriately.