Re: NULL values

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 09:40:31AM +0100, Mark Muffett wrote:
> Is there a Postgresql equivalent to the Oracle NVL( ) function,
> which allows a SELECT statement to fill in default values if a
> column is NULL?

Yes.

Use the DEFAULT keyword while creating the table.

That is:

CREATE TABLE account (
name CHAR(20),
balance NUMERIC(16,2) DEFAULT 0,
active CHAR(2) DEFAULT 'Y',
created TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

Then :

INSERT INTO account (name)
VALUES ('Federated Builders');

will leave the inserted rows with no nulls, but the balance will be
zero, and the "created" field will have the date/time of the insert.

> Mark Muffett

-crl
--
Chad R. Larson (CRL22) chad(at)eldocomp(dot)com
Eldorado Computing, Inc. 602-604-3100
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