CASE/WHEN behavior with NULLS

From: Thalis Kalfigkopoulos <tkalfigo(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: CASE/WHEN behavior with NULLS
Date: 2012-08-31 23:14:19
Message-ID: CAEkCx9G7Zfa_OQCpJk4y84g8T3=YO0Hp02sVd+DP3hhp+0CaAw@mail.gmail.com
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Hello all,

I have a query that presents a sum() where in some records it's NULL
because all members of the group are NULL.
I decided I wanted to see a pretty 0 instead of NULL since it fits the
logic of the app.

This didn't work as expected (the NULL's persisted):
...CASE sum(foo) WHEN NULL THEN 0 ELSE sum(foo) END...

Whereas changing it to:
...CASE WHEN sum(foo) IS NULL THEN 0 ELSE sum(foo) END...
it works as expected, substituting the sum()'s that are NULL to zeros.

Is that expected behavior? Do i misunderstand how CASE/WHEN works?

Running: PostgreSQL 9.1.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (GCC)
3.4.6, 32-bit

TIA,
Thalis K.

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