SQL Server CASE Statement

The SQL Server CASE statement evaluates a list of conditions and returns one of multiple possible result expressions.

Although it’s commonly known as the “CASE statement”, the SQL Server documentation lists it as an expression. Plus it’s referred to as the “CASE expression” in the SQL standard. Some other DBMSs distinguish between the CASE statement and the CASE expression. Either way, here’s a quick rundown on how the “CASE statement” (or CASE expression) works in SQL Server.

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SQL ISNULL() Explained

Some RDBMSs provide an ISNULL() function that can be used when dealing with potentially null values.

MySQL, MariaDB, and Oracle Database each have an ISNULL() function that returns 1 if its argument is null, and 0 if it’s not.

SQL Server also has an ISNULL() function, but it works differently. It works more like how the IFNULL() function works in some other RDBMSs.

Other RDBMSs, such as PostgreSQL and SQLite don’t include an ISNULL() function, but they do support the IS NULL predicate (as do the other RDBMSs).

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