COALESCE(stringfield,'')

or

IF(stringfield IS NULL,'',stringfield)

Roy Lambert

Roy,

<< COALESCE(stringfield,'')

or

IF(stringfield IS NULL,'',stringfield) >>

COALESCE because of not needing the expression evaluation, but I doubt if
you'd ever be able to measure the difference to any large degree.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim

Ta. I don't suppose you've given consideration to Eryk's idea of using & as a special operator to join NULL's as though they were empty strings?


Roy Lambert

Roy,

<< Ta. I don't suppose you've given consideration to Eryk's idea of using &
as a special operator to join NULL's as though they were empty strings? >>

I missed that, but I'll put it down as something to look at.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

<< I missed that, but I'll put it down as something to look at. >>

I know Roy Lambert is asking for proprietary behavior all the time. I for
one hope you'll resist to implement user demands that will make EDB SQL
non-standard.

Ole Willy Tuv

Ole


>I know Roy Lambert is asking for proprietary behavior all the time. I for
>one hope you'll resist to implement user demands that will make EDB SQL
>non-standard.

Its already non-standard as are most implementations - that's what enhancements are all about

Roy Lambert

Ole,

<< I know Roy Lambert is asking for proprietary behavior all the time. I for
one hope you'll resist to implement user demands that will make EDB SQL
non-standard. >>

I'm only considering extensions that can be ignored in favor of the
standard, not changes in behavior.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

<< I'm only considering extensions that can be ignored in favor of the
standard, not changes in behavior. >>

Sounds good to me

And for the record, I think you've done an excellent job with keeping EDB
very close to the standard specifications.

Ole Willy Tuv

Tim

>I'm only considering extensions that can be ignored in favor of the
>standard, not changes in behavior.

Shame, yah! boo! <vbg>


Roy Lambert

Tim

>COALESCE because of not needing the expression evaluation, but I doubt if
>you'd ever be able to measure the difference to any large degree.

Learning opportunity for Roy

The reason I asked to start with was I thought COALESCE (as well as being hard to spell) would have to do a test internally and by using IF I was "doing the test for it".

What does COALESCE do then?

Roy Lambert