2015-05-01
1,809 reads
NULL
Database Design Follies: NULL vs. NOT NULL
It sounds simple enough. Either your column will always have a value or it may not. Yet somehow such a seemingly simple decision can become a never-ending debate where database schema begins to resemble superstition and designing effective tables seems more contentious than you expected it to be.
2016-02-26 (first published: 2014-10-30)
27,476 reads
2014-03-27
2,375 reads
2013-06-05
2,469 reads
2013-05-10
2,285 reads
2012-05-11
3,372 reads
Working with null values in SQL XML
We all know NULL values must be dealt with carefully in T-SQL, but how exactly do you best deal with them in SQL XML?
2010-10-26
27,896 reads
2010-06-17
3,975 reads
2010-04-07
4,066 reads
Accommodating Null Values in SQL Server
The key to working with null values properly is to accommodate them consistently. Learn a few tricks that will help you do just that.
2009-09-16
4,497 reads
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Question of the Day
The Empty Aggregate
I have this table in a SQL Server 2025 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CustomerOrder] ( [OrderID] [int] NULL, [CustomerID] [int] NULL, [total] [money] NULL ) ON [PRIMARY] GOWhat is returned from this code? (answers are for the sum and then the count)
SELECT SUM(total) AS sum,
COUNT(total) AS count
FROM dbo.CustomerOrder;
See possible answers