Re: AW: [HACKERS] isnull() or is it?t

Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us>

From: Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu (Thomas G. Lockhart)
Cc: hlefebvre@easynet.fr, pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
Date: 1998-12-09T15:47:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
> > With SyBase, IsNull(X,Y) returns X if X is not null, and Y
> > if X is null.
> 
> Which is identical in behavior to the SQL92-defined function
> COALESCE(X,Y) (IsNull() is not in the standard). This is now in the
> Postgres development tree, to be available in the next release. Should
> we also have the less capable IsNull() available too? COALESCE() has the
> nice feature that it takes an unlimited number of arguments, returning
> the first non-null result.

Oh, NVL and isnull are not standard?  Then let's just use coalesce.  I
will remove them from the TODO list.

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