Oracle ISNULL() Equivalent

Most major DBMSs provide us with a function for replacing null values with another value.

But the name of the function tends to differ across DBMSs. For example, SQL Server has an ISNULL() function, while others (such as MySQL, MariaDB, and SQLite) have an IFNULL() function for doing the same thing.

However, to confuse matters, MySQL and MariaDB each have an ISNULL() function that works differently to SQL Server’s function of the same name (MySQL and MariaDB’s implementation only accept a single argument, and return 1 if its null and 0 if it’s not).

Continue reading

MySQL IF() Function Explained

MySQL has an IF() function that provides a convenient way to perform a simple “IF/ELSE” operation.

It works similar to a basic IF/ELSE statement, in that it allows us to check for a condition, and return a different result depending on whether it’s true or not.

More specifically, if the first argument to the IF() function is true, the second argument is returned. If it’s not true, the third argument is returned.

Continue reading