RE: Left join question (was: SQL table joins: Join vs. Where)

I like ifnull better myself, mainly 'cause I always have to look up how to
spell coalesce. <grin>

But I think the SQL standard is coalesce :-(

What weird font?  My posts look ok when they come back to me, and in the
archive.

David has mentioned that my posts come through as ISO-"something" Japanese.
Which is due to the fact the way our mail servers are configured to support
Japanese and English from what our PC people tell me.

Charles


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Bale [mailto:dbale@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 1:46 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: RE: Left join question (was: SQL table joins: Join vs. Where)
> 
> 
> 
> Sure do.  It's just that the coalesce post had an example and 
> the ifnull
> didn't, so I tried the coalesce without looking that up in 
> the ref and it
> worked, so...
> 
> But now that you've clued me in, I think I like ifnull 
> better.  I had to
> look up a definition of coalesce, and it doesn't seem to match its SQL
> function.  IfNull reads much better.  Is there a preference 
> for one or the
> other in the SQL community?  The ref doesn't mention one.
> 
> Thanks Charles!  And thanks for dropping that weird font! <g>
> 
> db
>