From: Martijn Tonies
Date: October 30 2004 2:29pm
Subject: Re: bug or feature, <> 'blah' does NOT work with null records
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/175019
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> > Fortunately there is function COALESCE() that will return the first
argument
> > that is not NULL. In case of NULL values you can use a default value for
an
> > expression: COALESCE( `col`*2, 14) will produce 14 if `col` is NULL.
>
> FWIW, IFNULL() does the same thing, with a clearer (to me) name, e.g.,
> IFNULL(sum(qty), 0).

Do note, that COALESCE is the standard name for this :-)

With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - developer tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL & MS SQL
Server.
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com