Appending null produces null?
extracts=# select bill_address1, bill_address2, bill_address1 || ' ' ||
bill_address2 from customers where external_id = 20037514;
bill_address1 | bill_address2 | ?column?
-----------------+---------------+----------
6745 Avalon Ave | |
(1 row)
I know that the usual operations with 'null' will produce null, but I didn't
expect it in the case of a text field being appended to another text field.
No doubt that follows as a matter of strict principle, but the outcome makes
no sense from a purely practical point of view. Is this really the intended
behaviour? I know that I can work around this with a 'coalesce' or
something similar, but that seems unnecessarily messy.
On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Jeff Eckermann wrote:
extracts=# select bill_address1, bill_address2, bill_address1 || ' ' ||
bill_address2 from customers where external_id = 20037514;
bill_address1 | bill_address2 | ?column?
-----------------+---------------+----------
6745 Avalon Ave | |
(1 row)I know that the usual operations with 'null' will produce null, but I didn't
expect it in the case of a text field being appended to another text field.
No doubt that follows as a matter of strict principle, but the outcome makes
no sense from a purely practical point of view. Is this really the intended
behaviour? I know that I can work around this with a 'coalesce' or
something similar, but that seems unnecessarily messy.
Yes, this is really the intended behavior. Null means 'no value known',
which is different from empty string...