# Handling NULL values

# Operations containing NULL are NULL, except concatenation

SELECT 3 * NULL + 5, 'Hello ' || NULL || 'world'   from DUAL;

3*NULL+5	'HELLO'		NULL		'WORLD'
(null)	Hello world

# NVL2 to get a different result if a value is null or not

If the first parameter is NOT NULL, NVL2 will return the second parameter. Otherwise it will return the third one.

SELECT NVL2(null, 'Foo', 'Bar'), NVL2(5, 'Foo', 'Bar') FROM DUAL;

NVL2(NULL,'FOO','BAR')	NVL2(5,'FOO','BAR')
Bar	Foo

# COALESCE to return the first non-NULL value

SELECT COALESCE(a, b, c, d, 5) FROM 
    (SELECT NULL A, NULL b, NULL c, 4 d FROM DUAL);

COALESCE(A,B,C,D,5)
4

In some case, using COALESCE with two parameters can be faster than using NVL when the second parameter is not a constant. NVL will always evaluate both parameters. COALESCE will stop at the first non-NULL value it encounters. It means that if the first value is non-NULL, COALESCE will be faster.

# Columns of any data type can contain NULLs

SELECT 1 NUM_COLUMN, 'foo' VARCHAR2_COLUMN from DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT NULL, NULL from DUAL;

NUM_COLUMN	VARCHAR2_COLUMN
1	foo
(null)	(null)

# Empty strings are NULL

SELECT 1 a, '' b from DUAL;

A	B
1	(null)

# NVL to replace null value

SELECT a column_with_null, NVL(a, 'N/A') column_without_null FROM
  (SELECT NULL a FROM DUAL);

COLUMN_WITH_NULL	COLUMN_WITHOUT_NULL
(null)	N/A

NVL is useful to compare two values which can contain NULLs :

SELECT
    CASE WHEN a = b THEN 1 WHEN a <> b THEN 0 else -1 END comparison_without_nvl,
    CASE WHEN NVL(a, -1) = NVL(b, -1) THEN 1 WHEN NVL(a, -1) <> NVL(b, -1) THEN 0 else -1 END comparison_with_nvl
  FROM
    (select null a, 3 b FROM DUAL
     UNION ALL
     SELECT NULL, NULL FROM DUAL);

COMPARISON_WITHOUT_NVL	COMPARISON_WITH_NVL
-1	0
-1	1

# Remarks

NULL can't appear in columns restricted by a PRIMARY KEY or a NOT NULL constraint. (Exception is a new constraint with NOVALIDATE clause)

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