I am playing with sqlplus command prompt, I want to display a default string, lets say 'ITISNULL' for all NULL columns without updating them.
select * from enrollments where ....
Enrollments is a table which might contain null in its lgrade column. I dont want to update it but just want an output string say, "to be graded" to be printed in its place.
Is there any SQL function I can use for this?
There are a couple ways to do this. One option is to use COALESCE:
SELECT COALSECE(lgrade, 'to be graded')...
You can't specify * for all fields, you'll have to specify each column name accordingly.
NVL is your answer, you will need to do for every column that could have nulls values
http://www.techonthenet.com/oracle/functions/nvl.php
In SQL*Plus you can use SET NULL:
SQL> SET NULL 'ITISNULL'
SQL> SELECT ...
All NULL results will display as ITISNULL. The only problem is that columns with a width of less than 8 (the length of ITISNULL) may wrap - at least they do in my older version of SQL*Plus (9.2).
To return SQL*Plus to its default, issue the following:
SQL> SET NULL ''
there are plenty of ways to show a string when the column is null. As mentioned above, some of the ways :-
Use NVL to display 'itisnull' whenever the value of col1 is null.
select nvl(col1, 'itisnull') from tableName;
Use CASE to display 'itisnull' whenever the value of col1 is null.
select
case when col1 is null then
'itisnull'
else col1
end colum from tableName;
Related
I am trying to concatenate multiple columns in a query in SQL Server 11.00.3393.
I tried the new function CONCAT() but it's not working when I use more than two columns.
So I wonder if that's the best way to solve the problem:
SELECT CONCAT(CONCAT(CONCAT(COLUMN1,COLUMN2),COLUMN3),COLUMN4) FROM myTable
I can't use COLUMN1 + COLUMN2 because of NULL values.
EDIT
If I try SELECT CONCAT('1','2','3') AS RESULT I get an error
The CONCAT function requires 2 argument(s)
Through discourse it's clear that the problem lies in using VS2010 to write the query, as it uses the canonical CONCAT() function which is limited to 2 parameters. There's probably a way to change that, but I'm not aware of it.
An alternative:
SELECT '1'+'2'+'3'
This approach requires non-string values to be cast/converted to strings, as well as NULL handling via ISNULL() or COALESCE():
SELECT ISNULL(CAST(Col1 AS VARCHAR(50)),'')
+ COALESCE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(50),Col2),'')
SELECT CONCAT(LOWER(LAST_NAME), UPPER(LAST_NAME)
INITCAP(LAST_NAME), HIRE DATE AS ‘up_low_init_hdate’)
FROM EMPLOYEES
WHERE HIRE DATE = 1995
Try using below:
SELECT
(RTRIM(LTRIM(col_1))) + (RTRIM(LTRIM(col_2))) AS Col_newname,
col_1,
col_2
FROM
s_cols
WHERE
col_any_condition = ''
;
Blockquote
Using concatenation in Oracle SQL is very easy and interesting. But don't know much about MS-SQL.
Blockquote
Here we go for Oracle :
Syntax:
SQL> select First_name||Last_Name as Employee
from employees;
Result: EMPLOYEE
EllenAbel
SundarAnde
MozheAtkinson
Here AS: keyword used as alias.
We can concatenate with NULL values.
e.g. : columnm1||Null
Suppose any of your columns contains a NULL value then the result will show only the value of that column which has value.
You can also use literal character string in concatenation.
e.g.
select column1||' is a '||column2
from tableName;
Result: column1 is a column2.
in between literal should be encolsed in single quotation. you cna exclude numbers.
NOTE: This is only for oracle server//SQL.
for anyone dealing with Snowflake
Try using CONCAT with multiple columns like so:
SELECT
CONCAT(col1, col2, col3) AS all_string_columns_together
, CONCAT(CAST(col4 AS VARCHAR(50), col1) AS string_and_int_column
FROM table
If the fields are nullable, then you'll have to handle those nulls. Remember that null is contagious, and concat('foo', null) simply results in NULL as well:
SELECT CONCAT(ISNULL(column1, ''),ISNULL(column2,'')) etc...
Basically test each field for nullness, and replace with an empty string if so.
I understand that AS is used to create an alias. Therefore, it makes sense to have one long name aliased as a shorter one. However, I am seeing a SQL query NULL as ColumnName
What does this imply?
SELECT *, NULL as aColumn
Aliasing can be used in a number of ways, not just to shorten a long column name.
In this case, your example means you're returning a column that always contains NULL, and it's alias/column name is aColumn.
Aliasing can also be used when you're using computed values, such as Column1 + Column2 AS Column3.
When unioning or joining datasets using a 'Null AS [ColumnA] is a quick way to make sure create a complete dataset that can then be updated later and a new column does not need to be created in any of the source tables.
In the statement result we have a column that has all NULL values. We can refer to that column using alias.
In your case the query selects all records from table, and each result record has additional column containing only NULL values. If we want to refer to this result set and to additional column in other place in the future, we should use alias.
It means that "aColumn" has only Null values. This column could be updated with actual values later but it's an empty one when selected.
---I'm not sure if you know about SSIS, but this mechanism is useful with SSIS to add variable value to the "empty" column.
When using SELECT you can pass a value to the column directly.
So something like :
SELECT ID, Name, 'None' AS Hobbies, 0 AS NumberOfPets, NULL AS Picture, '' AS Adress
Is valid.
It can be used to format nicely a query output when using UNION/UNION ALL.
Query result can have a new column that has all NULL values. In SQL Server we can do it like this
SELECT *, CAST(NULL AS <data-type>) AS as aColumn
e.g.
SELECT *, CAST(NULL AS BIGINT) AS as aColumn
How about without using the the as
SELECT ID
, Name
, 'None' AS Hobbies
, 0 AS NumberOfPets
, NULL Picture
Usually adding NULL as [Column] name at the end of a select all is used when inserting into another table a calculated column based on the table you have just selected.
UPDATE #TempTable SET aColumn = Column1 + Column2 WHERE ...
Then exporting or saving the results to another table.
I have a column in a table that is blank. The weird thing is that it does not appear to be null or an empty string. So, if I do this:
SELECT *
FROM TABLE
WHERE column IS NULL
...or:
SELECT *
FROM TABLE
WHERE column = ''
I get nothing. Thoughts?
Issue this query:
SELECT column, DUMP(column, 1016)
FROM table
It'll show the exact contents.
Related: Oracle does not allow empty strings; they're silently converted to NULL.
Maybe the column contains only spaces?
Did you try
select *
from table
where trim(column) is null
Oracle's got a basically permanent annoyance that empty strings are treated as null. However, are you sure that's an empty string? It could be an otherwise invisible character, such as a space or tab/linebreak/linefeed/etc... What does the string length show when you do select length(column) from table?
Try this:
SELECT *
FROM TABLE
WHERE TRIM(column) IS NULL
If your column is not VARCHAR2 but CHAR(N) then insertion of an empty string is padded. See what Tom Kyte tells about this
imagine there are 50 columns. I dont wan't any row that includes a null value. Are there any tricky way?
SQL 2005 server
Sorry, not really. All 50 columns have to be checked in one form or another.
Column1 IS NOT NULL AND ... AND Column50 IS NOT NULL
Of course, under these conditions why not disallow NULLs in the first place by having NOT NULL in the table definition
If it's SQL Server 2005+ you can do something like:
SELECT fields
FROM MyTable
WHERE stuff
EXCEPT -- This excludes the below results
SELECT fields
FROM MyTable
WHERE (Col1 + Col2 + Col3....) IS NULL
Adding a null to a value results in a null, so the sum of all your columns will be NULL.
This may need to change based on your data types, but adding NULL to either a char/varchar or a number will result in another NULL.
If you are looking at the values not being null, you can do this in the select statement.
SELECT ISNULL(firstname,''), ISNULL(lastname,'') FROM TABLE WHERE SOMETHING=1
This will replace nulls with string blanks. If you want another value use: ISNULL(firstname,'empty') for example. You can use anything where the word empty is.
I prefer this query
select *
from table
where column1>''
and column2>''
and (column3>'' or column3<'')
Allows sql server to use an index seek if the proper index/es exist. you would have to do the syntext for column 3 for any numeric values that could be negative.
I have a stored procedure with a parameter name which I want to use in a where clause to match the value of a column i.e. something like
where col1 = name
Now of course this fails to match null to null because of the way null works. Do I need to do
where ((name is null and col1 is null) or col1 = name)
in situations like this or is there a more concise way of doing it?
You can use decode function in the following fashion:
where decode(col1, name, 0) is not null
Cite from SQL reference:
In a DECODE function, Oracle considers
two nulls to be equivalent.
I think your own suggestion is the best way to do it.
What you have done is correct. There is a more concise way, but it isn't really better:
where nvl(col1,'xx') = nvl(name,'xx')
The trouble is, you have to make sure that the value you use for nulls ('xx' is my example) couldn't actually be a real value in the data.
If col1 is indexed, it would be best (performance-wise) to split the query in two:
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE col1 = name
UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE name IS NULL AND col1 IS NULL
This way, Oracle can optimize both queries independently, so the first or second part won't be actually executed depending on the name passed being NULL or not.
Oracle, though, does not index NULL values of fields, so searching for a NULL value will always result in a full table scan.
If your table is large, holds few NULL values and you search for them frequently, you can create a function-based index:
CREATE INDEX ix_mytable_col1__null ON mytable (CASE WHEN col1 IS NULL THEN 1 END)
and use it in a query:
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE col1 = name
UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE CASE WHEN col1 IS NULL THEN 1 END = CASE WHEN name IS NULL THEN 1 END
Keep it the way you have it. It's more intuitive, less buggy, works in any database, and is faster. The concise way is not always the best. See (PLSQL) What is the simplest expression to test for a changed value in an Oracle on-update trigger?
SELECT * FROM table
WHERE paramater IS NULL OR column = parameter;