Re: concatenation issue ( 8.4 )

On 18 Sep 2009, at 18:25, Raymond O'Donnell wrote:

> On 18/09/2009 16:52, Jonathan Vanasco wrote:
>> I have a table with
>>    name_first
>>    name_middle
>>    name_last
>>
>> if i try concatenating as such:
>>    SELECT
>>        name_first || ' ' || name_middle || ' ' || name_last
>>    FROM
>>        mytable
>>    ;
>>
>> I end up with NULL as the concatenated string whenever any of the
>> referred fields contain a NULL value
>>
>> I tried some text conversion and explicit casting , but that didn't
>> work
>>
>> What am I doing wrong ?
>
> Use the coalesce() function to ensure that you get non-null values,
> thus:
>
>  select
>    coalesce(name_first, '') || ' ' || coalesce (name_middle, '') ....


Or better yet (you won't get double spaces if any value is NULL):

select
    coalesce(name_first, '') || coalesce (' ' || name_middle, '') ....

Alban Hertroys

--
Screwing up is the best way to attach something to the ceiling.


!DSPAM:737,4ab3c88e11681661021018!