Re: Text concat problem

Luis Magaña wrote:
>
> Hi:
>
> Have this curious situation and would like some help from you:
>
> Create an employee table:
>
> CREATE TABLE employee(
> id_employee SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
> sex CHAR(1) DEFAULT 'm' CHECK(sex = 'f' OR sex = 'm'),
> start_date DATE NOT NULL,
> charge VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
> last_name VARCHAR(50),
> first_name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
> title VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL
> );
>
> then fill it with a few values:
>
> insert into employee(title,first_name,start_date,charge) values('Mr. X','Smith',date(now()),'None');
> insert into employee(title,first_name,start_date,charge) values('Mr. Y','Smith',date(now()),'None');
> insert into employee(title,first_name,start_date,charge) values('Mr. Z','Smith',date(now()),'None');
>
> so far there is no problem at all, the problem comes here:
>
> select title || ' ' || first_name || ' ' || last_name as fullname from employee;
>
> fullname
> ----------------
>
>
>
> (3 rows)
>
> Doesn't work !!!!, I'm thinking it is because of the null value in last_name. Have any idea or suggestion on how to workaround this situation.

Yup.. it's due to the null.. I believe that the coalesce function can
get you out of this... Speaking of which, why isn't it called NVL()?

http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/7.0/user/functions.htm

Try this (untested):

select coalesce(title, ''::varchar) || ' ' || coalesce(first_name,
''::varchar) || ' ' || coalesce(last_name, ''::varchar) as fullname from
employee;