From: Martijn Tonies Date: August 31 2004 12:40pm Subject: Re: Concat List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/171828 Message-Id: <001301c48f57$b90d7490$0a02a8c0@martijn> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Concat() returns Null if any field in the field list > is Null. How can I use it to return a String > regardless, or is there another function to do it? COALESCE(value,...) Returns the first non-NULL value in the list. mysql> SELECT COALESCE(NULL,1); -> 1 mysql> SELECT COALESCE(NULL,NULL,NULL); -> NULL COALESCE() was added in MySQL 3.23.3. So, if you use CONCAT(COALESCE(Myfield, ''), COALESCE(OtherField, '') ) With regards, Martijn Tonies Database Workbench - developer tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL & MS SQL Server. Upscene Productions http://www.upscene.com