We all know that the CONCAT function is used to concatenate strings. But what happens when one of the strings is a NULL value? The answer to that question depends on the database…
Vertica, MySQL and SQL Server all return a NULL result:
Vertica:
Code: Select all
dbadmin=> SELECT concat('Rocket J. Squirrel', NULL);
concat
--------
(1 row)
Code: Select all
MySQL> SELECT concat('Bullwinkle J. Moose', NULL);
+-------------------------------------+
| concat('Bullwinkle J. Moose', NULL) |
+-------------------------------------+
| NULL |
+-------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
![Image](http://vertica-forums.com/MyUploads/sql-server_concat_null.png)
Whereas, both Oracle and PostgreSQL ignore NULLs:
Oracle:
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SQL> SELECT concat('Boris Badenov', NULL) FROM dual;
CONCAT('BORIS
-------------
Boris Badenov
Code: Select all
SELECT concat('Fearless Leader', NULL);
concat
Fearless Leader