How do you replace a NULL value in the select with an empty string?
It doesn't look very professional to output "NULL" values.
This is very unusual and based on my syntax I would expect it to work.
I'm hoping for an explanation why it doesn't.
select CASE prereq WHEN (prereq IS NULL) THEN " " ELSE prereq end from test;
Example of what the original table looks like, what I want, and what actually prints:
original wanted what actually prints
-------- ------ ---------------------
value1 value1
NULL NULL
value2 value2
NULL NULL
As you can see it does the opposite of what I want, hence I tried flipping the IS NULL to IS NOT NULL and of course that didn't fix it. I also tried swapping the position of when case, which did not work.
It seems the 3 solutions given below all do the task.
select if(prereq IS NULL ," ",prereq ) from test
select IFNULL(prereq,"") from test
select coalesce(prereq, '') from test
If you really must output every values including the NULL ones:
select IFNULL(prereq,"") from test
SELECT COALESCE(prereq, '') FROM test
Coalesce will return the first non-null argument passed to it from left to right. If all arguemnts are null, it'll return null, but we're forcing an empty string there, so no null values will be returned.
Also note that the COALESCE operator is supported in standard SQL. This is not the case of IFNULL. So it is a good practice to get use the former. Additionally, bear in mind that COALESCE supports more than 2 parameters and it will iterate over them until a non-null coincidence is found.
Try below ;
select if(prereq IS NULL ," ",prereq ) from test
Some of these built-in functions should work:
COALESCE(value,...)
Returns the first non-NULL value in the list, or NULL if there are no non-NULL values.
IS NULL
Tests whether a value is NULL.
IFNULL(expr1,expr2)
If expr1 is not NULL, IFNULL() returns expr1; otherwise it returns expr2.
select IFNULL(`prereq`,'') as ColumnName FROM test
this query is selecting "prereq" values and if any one of the values are null it show an empty string as you like
So, it shows all values but the NULL ones are showns in blank
The original form is nearly perfect, you just have to omit prereq after CASE:
SELECT
CASE
WHEN prereq IS NULL THEN ' '
ELSE prereq
END AS prereq
FROM test;
Try COALESCE. It returns the first non-NULL value.
SELECT COALESCE(`prereq`, ' ') FROM `test`
Try this, this should also get rid of those empty lines also:
SELECT prereq FROM test WHERE prereq IS NOT NULL;
I have nulls (NULL as default value) in a non-required field in a database. They do not cause the value "null" to show up in a web page. However, the value "null" is put in place when creating data via a web page input form. This was due to the JavaScript taking null and transcribing it to the string "null" when submitting the data via AJAX and jQuery. Make sure that this is not the base issue as simply doing the above is only a band-aid to the actual issue. I also implemented the above solution IFNULL(...) as a double measure. Thanks.
UPDATE your_table set your_field="" where your_field is null
Related
I have a column that has null values as well as other values such as 'deactivated'. I am trying to build a query that says "WHERE field <> 'deactivated" but it returns an empty result set. From my research it seems to be because it can't compare to the null values. But I haven't been able to figure out how to get around it.
Thanks
As it seems that you want nulls included in the result set, the correct condition would be
WHERE field <> 'deactivated' OR field IS NULL
Try looking for NULL specifically:
WHERE field <> 'deactivated' OR field IS NULL
FYI, you must use IS NOT and not a comparision operator because NULL doesn't equal anything. Even another NULL;
Since you're using MySQL, you can use the "equal to" operator:
WHERE NOT(field <=> 'deactivated')
In other, more SQL-standards compliant databases, you'd write
WHERE field IS DISTINCT FROM 'deactivated'
I have recently written a blog post on the DISTINCT predicate and how it is supported in various databases.
You can use MySQL's "null-safe equal" operator <=>:
WHERE NOT field <=> 'deactivated'
I have a column called CODE in a MySQL table which can be NULL. Say I have some rows with CODE='C' which I want to ignore in my select result set. I can have either CODE=NULL or CODE!='C' in my result set.
The following query does not return a row with CODE as NULL:
SELECT * from TABLE where CODE!='C'
But this query works as expected and I know it is the right way to do it.
SELECT * from TABLE where CODE IS NULL OR CODE!='C'
My question is why does having only CODE!='C' does not return rows where CODE=NULL? Definitely 'C' is not NULL. We are comparing no value to a character here. Can someone throw some light as why it doesn't work that way?
In MySQL, NULL is considered as a 'missing, unknown value', as opposed to no value. Take a look at this MySQL Reference on NULL.
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.
Any arithmetic comparison with 'NULL' will return false. To check this in SQL:
SELECT IF(NULL=123,'true','false')
To check NULL values we need to use IS NULL & IS NOT NULL operator.
Based on my tests and the documentation here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/comparison-operators.html
You can compare null and get a boolean result using <=>
NOTE: it looks like NOT EQ operator, but it's EQ operator
For example:
select x <=> y;
or
select #x <=> #y;
This also compares string vs null, string vs string, etc.
In SQL, the NULL value is a special value, not comparable with any other one.
The result of a direct comparison with a NULL is always NULL, although (unfortunately) you may find FALSE in some implementation.
To test a null value you should use IS NULL and IS NOT NULL.
SELECT *
FROM `table_name`
WHERE IFNULL(`column_name` != 'C', TRUE)
The specified problem can also appear in joins and the above answers aren't particularly helpful. The way I prefer to do it is by coalescing to otherwise impossible value. For example, this
select foo from bar
inner join baz on bar.x = baz.y
won't work if bar.x and baz.y are both nulls (join won't bring results). The workaround is to use e.g.
select foo from bar
inner join baz on coalesce(bar.x, -1) = coalesce(baz.y, -1)
where -1 is "impossible" value meaning it can never appear in the data set.
select * from user where application_id='1223333344' and name is null;
I use:
SELECT * from TABLE where NOT(CODE <=> 'C')
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] = ''
Can anyone help me understand or post any ideas concerning this where clause?
sql was here
I've changed the table name, but other than that, any idea what the developer was trying to do here?
There is nothing else after that, that's the where clause.
If (table.date_field = (select max(table2.exit_date) from table as table2)) is null the it'll return 1=1, which basically means there's no where clause at all.
Now let's look into that nasty expression. I can only assume that if "a = b" is not true then that's also equivalent to null, otherwise it seems like the first branch would always happen. It looks like it's trying to say "if the latest exit date is equal to the date field, select those, otherwise have no where clause". However, I don't think that this will work at all. It really looks like either way, each row will be selected.
The MySQL ifnull function returns the first argument if it is not null, otherwise the second argument. This looks like it tries to compare table.date_field to the max(table2.exit_date), and return true if the comarison was not possible due to nulls.
It looks to me like he is trying to find the row where table.date_field is equal to the maximum of table.exit_data. There is a check for null which I think would happen in any of these cases:
table is empty
all rows in table have exit_data set to NULL
table.date_field is NULL for the row in question
In any of these three cases, the row will be returned. I don't understand why he uses the string '1=1' instead of, to give some examples: 1=1, 1 or true, but it appears to work fine. In the first case I assume that there will be no rows in the result set anyway (depending on the rest of the query) so he was probably trying to handle one of the other two cases - I'd guess the last one.
This is only an explanation of what is happening. To understand why he is doing this, it would help if you gave a little more context.
MySQL is nonstandard in that true is really equal to the numeric value 1. Any expression that evaluates to true, or any nonzero value, satisfies the condition.
mysql> CREATE TABLE foo AS SELECT 1=1 AS f;
mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE foo;
CREATE TABLE `foo` (
`f` INT NOT NULL DEFAULT '0'
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
So the following WHERE clause is legal in MySQL, but not in most other SQL databases:
... WHERE 1;
Some people use 1=1 as a placeholder condition meaning true, but putting it in a string is meaningless because SQL expressions have no equivalent to an eval() function as other languages have. In this case, the leading character 1 in the string is implicitly cast to a numeric value 1, which is interpreted as true in MySQL. So it probably works as intended, but kind of by accident.
The use of IFNULL() is so that if either date_field or MAX(exit_date) is NULL, it returns the row. If you didn't use this function, then anything = NULL would evaluate as unknown, which means the row would not be returned.
It says basically if table.date_field = max exit date or if max exit_date is null or table.date_field is null return true. Will return false if max exit_date is not null and table.date_field is not null but they do not equal.
I have a table with name,age and address.I have totally five rows of data in the table.For some rows the age is left null.I have to display all the data where age is not null.
select * from sample_table where (age !=null);
But no output is displayed and it doesn't give an error also.Please explain this.Thanks.
With NULL you have to use IS or IS NOT. The following query should work:
SELECT * FROM sample_table WHERE (age IS NOT NULL)
The explanation from MySQL
The concept of the NULL value is a common source of confusion for
newcomers to SQL, who often think that
NULL is the same thing as an empty
string ''. This is not the case.
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
If you want to search for column values that are NULL, you cannot use
an expr = NULL test.
To look for NULL values, you must use the IS NULL test.
You have to use IS NULL or IS NOT NULL.
You can not compare directly against NULL because it is not value (no pedants please!)
NULL on Wikipedia
MySQL, Sybase, SQL Server... it's all the same