> > Ah well, SQL (these days) provides plenty of functions to avoid > > the problems. Coalesce being one of them... > > > > How often do people write: > > > > (probably not valid MySQL) > > select firstname || coalesce(middlename || ' ', ' ') || lastname > > from ... > > > Your syntax isn't quite correct; coalesce doesn't use a concatenation > symbol, it uses a list of arguments like this: > > coalesce(Salary, commission, bonus)
Yes, the reason I was using || ' ' there was when middle name was not null, it would already add a space, and when it's null, it would just return a space. Given that NULL || ' ' returns NULL anyways, this would be give me the results for all cases, I think :) -- Martijn Tonies -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
