In MariaDB, the ISNULL() function checks whether an expression is null or not. If the expression resolves to null, then ISNULL() returns 1, otherwise it returns 0.
Find All Non-Numeric Values in a Column in SQL
If you ever encounter a character column that should be numeric, there’s always a possibility that it contains non-numeric data that you don’t know about.
For example, someone might have set up a Price column as a varchar column that should have been a numeric column, and now you need to clean up after them. You might start by identifying all non-numeric data so that you can work out what to do with it before converting the column to a numeric type.
In SQL, you can run a query to return non-numeric data from the column. The query you use will largely depend on your DBMS.
Continue readingFind Values That Don’t Contain Numbers in SQL
If you have a column in a database table that contains character data, but some rows also contain numbers, you can use the following SQL queries to return just those rows that don’t contain numbers within the value.
Continue readingSQL CASE Statement
In SQL, the CASE statement evaluates a list of conditions and returns one of multiple possible result expressions.
In some ways, the SQL CASE statement is kind of similar to the IF...ELSE statement in that it allows us to check for a given condition and return a different result depending on the outcome.
GREATEST() Function in PostgreSQL
In PostgreSQL, the GREATEST() function returns the greatest (or largest) value from a list of any number of expressions.
The GREATEST() function is not included in the SQL standard, but it’s a popular extension that many major RDBMSs support.
SQL NULLIF() Explained
Most major RDBMSs support the NULLIF() operator, which returns NULL if both of its arguments are equivalent. If the arguments not equivalent, NULLIF() returns the first argument.
NULLIF() is a SQL-standard feature (it’s included in the ISO/IEC 9075 specification).
SQL COALESCE() Explained
Most major RDBMSs support the COALESCE() operator, which returns the first non-null value from its list of arguments.
COALESCE() is a SQL-standard feature (it’s included in the ISO/IEC 9075 specification).
LEAST() Function in PostgreSQL
In PostgreSQL, the LEAST() function returns the smallest value from a list of any number of expressions.
The LEAST() function is not included in the SQL standard, but it’s a popular extension that many major RDBMSs support.
6 Ways to Delete Duplicate Rows that have a Primary Key in Oracle
Here are some options for deleting duplicate rows from a table in Oracle Database when those rows have a primary key or unique identifier column.
In such cases, the primary key must be ignored when comparing duplicate rows (due to the fact that primary keys hold unique values).
Continue readingDetect Whether a Value Contains at Least One Numerical Digit in SQL
Sometimes you might need to search a database table for only those rows that contain at least one number in a given column.
Technically, numbers can be represented by words and other symbols, but here “number” means “numerical digit”.
Below are examples of how to find rows that contain at least one number in various SQL based DBMSs.
Continue reading