The COALESCE function is used to return the first non-null value in the parameter list and is suitable for processing NULL data. 1. The basic usage is to replace the NULL value, such as replacing the empty field with the default contact method; 2. It can be used to set the default value in aggregate queries to ensure that 0 is returned instead of NULL when there is no data; 3. It can be used in conjunction with other functions such as NULLIF and IFNULL to enhance data cleaning and logical judgment capabilities.
MySQL's COALESCE
function is actually quite practical, especially when dealing with NULL
values. Simply put, its function is to return the first non-empty value in the parameter list. This function is particularly useful when querying data, report display or data cleaning.

Here are some practical usage scenarios and tips that you may be concerned about:
1. Basic usage: replace NULL value
When you look up data from the database, you often encounter certain fields that are NULL
. At this time, if you want to display a default value instead of a blank, you can use COALESCE
.

for example:
SELECT COALESCE(phone, 'no contact number') AS contact_info FROM users;
This SQL section says: If the user's phone
field is NULL
, "No contact number" will be displayed.

This writing method is more flexible than IFNULL()
because COALESCE
supports multiple parameters and finds the first value that is not NULL
in order.
For example:
SELECT COALESCE(mobile, home_phone, office_phone, 'cannot contact') FROM users;
This will give priority to display your mobile phone number. If you don’t have one, then look at your home phone number. If you don’t have one, then the office phone number will be displayed. In the end, if you don’t have one, you will show “Can’t contact”.
2. Default values ??used in aggregate queries
Sometimes when you are doing statistics, you may encounter a group without data, and the result is NULL
. At this time, you can combine COALESCE
to set a default value.
For example, counting the number of people in each department:
SELECT dept_id, COALESCE(COUNT(*), 0) AS employee_count FROM employees GROUP BY dept_id;
Although COUNT(*)
will not return NULL
in this example, if you are getting data from other tables with left joins (LEFT JOIN), NULL
may appear. At this time, it is safe to add COALESCE
.
3. It is more powerful when used with other functions
COALESCE
is often used in conjunction with CASE WHEN
, IFNULL
or NULLIF
to enhance logical judgment capabilities.
For example, if you want to treat certain specific values ??as NULL
:
SELECT COALESCE(NULLIF(trim(phone), ''), 'No contact information') FROM users;
Here NULLIF(trim(phone), '')
is used to convert the empty string to NULL
, and then replace it with COALESCE
with the empty contact information.
This combination can make your data process cleaner.
Basically that's it. Although its syntax is simple, it is very convenient to use it to process missing data when actually writing SQL. If you use it well, you can save a lot of codes for judgment.
The above is the detailed content of mysql coalesce function. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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