CONCAT’ing NULL fields | MySQL – Blog do Rodrigo Calado

I have a table with two fields, FirstName and LastName.

Here’s some dummy data:

FirstName | LastName

NULL | Teles Calado
Rodrigo | NULL

Now, if I do:

[php]SELECT CONCAT(FirstName, LastName) as Vitals FROM STUDENTS[/php]

Vitals for both is null, as there is a single null field. How do you overcome this behaviour?

Try

[php]IFNULL(Firstname, ‘<BlankValue>’) — In MySQL[/php]

[php]CONCAT(IFNULL(FirstName,”),IFNULL(LastName,”)) — In MySQL[/php]

would return the same thing without the null issue (and a blank string where nulls should be).