Say I have a simple function in MySQL:
SELECT SUM(Column_1)
FROM Table
WHERE Column_2 = 'Test'
If no entries in Column_
2 contain the text 'Test' then this function returns NULL
, while I would like it to return 0.
I'm aware that a similar question has been asked a few times here, but I haven't been able to adapt the answers to my purposes, so I'd be grateful for some help to get this sorted.
Use COALESCE
to avoid that outcome.
SELECT COALESCE(SUM(column),0)
FROM table
WHERE ...
To see it in action, please see this sql fiddle: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!2/d1542/3/0
More Information:
Given three tables (one with all numbers, one with all nulls, and one with a mixture):
MySQL 5.5.32 Schema Setup:
CREATE TABLE foo
(
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
val INT
);
INSERT INTO foo (val) VALUES
(null),(1),(null),(2),(null),(3),(null),(4),(null),(5),(null),(6),(null);
CREATE TABLE bar
(
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
val INT
);
INSERT INTO bar (val) VALUES
(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6);
CREATE TABLE baz
(
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
val INT
);
INSERT INTO baz (val) VALUES
(null),(null),(null),(null),(null),(null);
Query 1:
SELECT 'foo' as table_name,
'mixed null/non-null' as description,
21 as expected_sum,
COALESCE(SUM(val), 0) as actual_sum
FROM foo
UNION ALL
SELECT 'bar' as table_name,
'all non-null' as description,
21 as expected_sum,
COALESCE(SUM(val), 0) as actual_sum
FROM bar
UNION ALL
SELECT 'baz' as table_name,
'all null' as description,
0 as expected_sum,
COALESCE(SUM(val), 0) as actual_sum
FROM baz
| TABLE_NAME | DESCRIPTION | EXPECTED_SUM | ACTUAL_SUM |
|------------|---------------------|--------------|------------|
| foo | mixed null/non-null | 21 | 21 |
| bar | all non-null | 21 | 21 |
| baz | all null | 0 | 0 |