In mysql table real_account_id's data type is int(11).
I want to fetch all records with NULL values.
I am using this simple query.
SELECT * FROM `customer_payment_options` WHERE real_account_id = NULL
But, it's not giving me any results. There are 2 records in database with NULL value.
I also tried with,
SELECT * FROM `customer_payment_options` WHERE real_account_id = 'NULL'
Why is it like this?
Thanks.
NULL is equal to nothing including NULL. That's why you must use IS NULL:
SELECT * FROM `customer_payment_options` WHERE real_account_id IS NULL
Related
Hope the question is not too generic. Couldn't find anything on the site or in SQL documentation:
While coding, i tested this, and to my surprise it worked:
SELECT * FROM cal_entry WHERE cal_entry.parent_id <> 'null'
It actually shows the rows without the ones with NULL values (these are real NULL values in database, not strings with 'null' inside).
According to the docs, I should have used NOT NULL, of course. By the way, it doesn't work with = 'null', like it is correctly stated in the docs.
Can someone explain that?
You are selecting all rows where <> 'null' is true.
Comparing(equals or not-equals) to null is null, so if a row where cal_entry.parent_id is null, your condition will be false/null.
So your query gets all rows that are not null, nor contain the string 'null'.
(Note, you could just as well have written <>'something_else')
Assuming parent_id in an int column the query will return all non-null, non-zero rows:
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT NULL AS parent_id UNION ALL
SELECT 0 UNION ALL
SELECT 1 UNION ALL
SELECT 2
) AS cal_entry
WHERE cal_entry.parent_id <> 'null'
-- returns 1 and 2 but not 0!
When comparing a number to string MySQL will convert the string to number. Some examples:
'null' becomes 0
'asdf' becomes 0
'1asdf' becomes 123
'1' becomes 1
Your query will behave like:
WHERE cal_entry.parent_id <> 0
this operator give you result of not equal to. ex. $var != null.
we write in mysql as <>. this is kind of validation that the value shoud never be equal to null.
When working with null following two statements should always be taken note of -
An expression can be null, but it can never be equal to null.
Two nulls are never equal to each other.
So, in your query wherever there is a comparison null<>null it returns true by second statement.
Also, always account the possibility that some rows might contain null -
Select * from cal_entry where cal_entry.parent_id!=10
This query would leave out the rows with null entries. Instead use -
Select * from cal_entry where cal_entry.parent_id!=10 or cal_entry.parent_id is null
I have a query which has this statement in the where clause:
AND (s1_.sync_id IS NULL OR s1_.sync_id = 0)
In the database I have this value:
sync_id
NULL --> NULL
invalid --> String 'invalid'
The query does select the row with the string "invalid" as well. I do not see why, because it is neither NULL nor 0.
I do want to select the rows with NULL or 0, but I do not want to select the row with a value which is different from these two.
Does anybody know what is happening here?
Thanks.
A small update required in your query:
AND (s1_.sync_id IS NULL OR s1_.sync_id = '0')
You need to cover 0 with '' as sync_id stores strings not the Integers.
I have a table named 'datatablecoulmn' with the following columns.
now i want all rows where the column FkID is NULL.FkID is an integer field
i tried the following queries
SELECT * FROM `datatablecoulmn` WHERE `FkID`=NULL
SELECT * FROM `datatablecoulmn` WHERE `FkID`<1
SELECT * FROM `datatablecoulmn` WHERE `FkID`='null'
All of these returns empty rows .Any help?
In MySQL, NULL is considered as a 'missing, unknown value', as opposed to no value. Any arithmetic comparison with NULL does not return true or false, but returns NULL instead., So, NULL != 'C' returns NULL, as opposed to returning true.
Use IS NULL condition in your query and try like this
SELECT * FROM `datatablecoulmn` WHERE `FkID` IS NULL
For handling NULL values MySQL provides three operators
IS NULL: operator returns true if column value is NULL.
IS NOT NULL: operator returns true if column value is not NULL.
<=>: operator compares values, which (unlike the = operator) is true
even for two NULL values.
You can refer to these links for more
Link 1,Link 2,Link 3
You can't compare with NULL. So you gotta check for YourColumn IS NULL (or maybe YourColumn IS NOT NULL.
NULL is a value like infinity is a number. In other words, not at all. NULL is the absence of certain information.
For the same reason that NaN (not a number) in IEEE754 floating point is not equal to other instances (or even the same instance) of NaN, nothing in SQL is equal to NULL, including NULL.
That's something that may sound strange but, when you think of the purpose of NULL, that of specifying unknown or inappropriate values, it makes sense.
In order to see if a value is NULL, you have to therefore use something like:
where COLUMN_NAME is null
More details on working with NULL in MySQL can be found here.
Use something like:
SELECT * FROM `datatablecoulmn` WHERE `FkID` is NULL
NULL is a placeholder to say there is the absence of a value. Which is why you can only use IS NULL/IS NOT NULL as predicates for such situations and not = or != or <> which is used by values.
Here is another way to exclude the records with FkID is NOT NULL:
SELECT D1.*
FROM datatablecoulmn D1
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT D2.*
FROM datatablecoulmn D2
WHERE D2.`FkID` IS NOT NULL)
Considering the following table:
create table inttest (
someint INT(10) NULL DEFAULT NULL
);
When I insert some random values
insert into inttest
(someint)
values
(1),(2),(3),(1),(2),(NULL);
and execute the query
select *
from inttest
where someint != 1;
MySQL returns 2,3,2 but not the NULL value. Is this correct? Should I extend my query with OR someint IS NULL or is it a bug in my MySQL installation?
Correct. Nothing is equal to NULL - including NULL. Or more formally, the result of evaluating NULL != 1 is UNKNOWN - and WHERE clause predicates have to evaluate to TRUE.
SELECT 1 != NULL;
-- Output: NULL
Comparison operators return TRUE, FALSE or NULL.
You're expecting NULL != 1 to give you TRUE but, sensibly, you get NULL for the comparison you make. This is because comparing anything with NULL is meaningless: NULL is not a value!.
Here's a cunning trick whereby you could get the NULL in the resultset if you still really want it. The trick relies on reversing the logic, then manually excluding the NULL possibility:
SELECT * FROM `inttest`
WHERE IF(`someint` = 1, FALSE, TRUE);
A more obvious approach might be:
SELECT * FROM `inttest`
WHERE `someint` != '1'
OR `someint` IS NULL;
You have to think of NULL as meaning UNKNOWN.
In your specific case, someint <> 1, you are asking the SQL engine to filter out anything that is not a 1. Since NULL is UNKNOWN, it could be a 1 but we will never know. Because of this, the SQL engine won't include it because it's not sure that it's not a 1.
I'm having a problem where when I try to select the rows that have a NULL for a certain column, it returns an empty set. However, when I look at the table in phpMyAdmin, it says null for most of the rows.
My query looks something like this:
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid = NULL
Empty set every time.
A lot of places said to make sure it's not stored as "NULL" or "null" instead of an actual value, and one said to try looking for just a space (userid = ' ') but none of these have worked. There was a suggestion to not use MyISAM and use innoDB because MyISAM has trouble storing null. I switched the table to innoDB but now I feel like the problem may be that it still isn't actually null because of the way it might convert it. I'd like to do this without having to recreate the table as innoDB or anything else, but if I have to, I can certainly try that.
SQL NULL's special, and you have to do WHERE field IS NULL, as NULL cannot be equal to anything,
including itself (ie: NULL = NULL is always false).
See Rule 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codd%27s_12_rules
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid IS NULL
As all are given answers I want to add little more. I had also faced the same issue.
Why did your query fail? You have,
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid = NULL;
This will not give you the expected result, because from mysql doc
In SQL, the NULL value is never true in comparison to any other value, even NULL. An expression that contains NULL always produces a NULL value unless otherwise indicated in the documentation for the operators and functions involved in the expression.
Emphasis mine.
To search for column values that are NULL, you cannot use an expr = NULL test. The following statement returns no rows, because expr = NULL is never true for any expression
Solution
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid IS NULL;
To test for NULL, use the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operators.
operator IS NULL tests whether a value is NULL.
operator IS NOT NULL tests whether a value is not NULL.
MySQL comparison operators
There's also a <=> operator:
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid <=> NULL
Would work. The nice thing is that <=> can also be used with non-NULL values:
SELECT NULL <=> NULL yields 1.
SELECT 42 <=> 42 yields 1 as well.
See here: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/comparison-operators.html#operator_equal-to
Info from http://w3schools.com/sql/sql_null_values.asp:
1) NULL values represent missing unknown data.
2) By default, a table column can hold NULL values.
3) NULL values are treated differently from other values
4) It is not possible to compare NULL and 0; they are not equivalent.
5) It is not possible to test for NULL values with comparison
operators, such as =, <, or <>.
6) We will have to use the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operators instead
So in case of your problem:
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid IS NULL
Had the same issue where query:
SELECT * FROM 'column' WHERE 'column' IS NULL;
returned no values.
Seems to be an issue with MyISAM and the same query on the data in InnoDB returned expected results.
Went with:
SELECT * FROM 'column' WHERE 'column' = ' ';
Returned all expected results.
SELECT pid FROM planets WHERE userid is null;
I had the same issue when converting databases from Access to MySQL (using vb.net to communicate with the database).
I needed to assess if a field (field type varchar(1)) was null.
This statement worked for my scenario:
SELECT * FROM [table name] WHERE [field name] = ''