COALESCE

Syntax

COALESCE(value,...)

Description

Returns the first non-NULL value in the list, or NULL if there are no non-NULL values. At least one parameter must be passed.

The function is useful when substituting a default value for null values when displaying data.

See also NULL Values in MariaDB.

Examples

SELECT COALESCE(NULL,1);
+------------------+
| COALESCE(NULL,1) |
+------------------+
|                1 |
+------------------+

SELECT COALESCE(NULL,NULL,NULL);
+--------------------------+
| COALESCE(NULL,NULL,NULL) |
+--------------------------+
|                     NULL |
+--------------------------+

When two arguments are given, COALESCE() is the same as IFNULL():

SET @a=NULL, @b=1;

SELECT COALESCE(@a, @b), IFNULL(@a, @b);
+------------------+----------------+
| COALESCE(@a, @b) | IFNULL(@a, @b) |
+------------------+----------------+
|                1 |              1 |
+------------------+----------------+

Hex type confusion:

CREATE TABLE t1 (a INT, b VARCHAR(10));
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (0x31, 0x61),(COALESCE(0x31), COALESCE(0x61));

SELECT * FROM t1;
+------+------+
| a    | b    |
+------+------+
|   49 | a    |
|    1 | a    |
+------+------+

The reason for the differing results above is that when 0x31 is inserted directly to the column, it's treated as a number (see Hexadecimal Literals), while when 0x31 is passed to COALESCE(), it's treated as a string, because:

• HEX values have a string data type by default.
• COALESCE() has the same data type as the argument.

Substituting zero for NULL (in this case when the aggregate function returns NULL after finding no rows):

SELECT SUM(score) FROM student;
+------------+
| SUM(score) |
+------------+
|       NULL |
+------------+

SELECT COALESCE(SUM(score),0) FROM student;
+------------------------+
| COALESCE(SUM(score),0) |
+------------------------+
|                      0 |
+------------------------+

See also

• NULL values
• IS NULL operator
• IS NOT NULL operator
• IFNULL function
• NULLIF function
• CONNECT data types