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I want return records from two database tables when a record differs in at least one of the fields.

I have written a query for it using the UNION operator. It is working absolutely fine.

However, I want to treat NULL and '' (empty string) as the same value.

For example, all entries have a field Email-ID having value NULL in one table and '' in the other table.

Using the query I have, it is showing these two are different. I want these two values to be treated the same. I have around 15 such fields.

How do I do this?

Hannah Vernon ♦
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asked Jul 11, 2012 at 6:05

1 Answer 1

4

Use ISNULL or COALESCE

SELECT COALESCE(A.NULLABLEFIELD,'') FROM A
UNION
SELECT COALESCE(B.NULLABLEFIELD,'') FROM B
answered Jul 11, 2012 at 6:30
3
  • Thanks. Just got it before your reply. Your reply made me confident about the solution. Thanks for the reply. Commented Jul 11, 2012 at 6:54
  • I used UNION to get that problem solved. Now what I want is to treat "raj" and "Raj" as different string values. Can I do it? Commented Jul 13, 2012 at 7:38
  • 2
    Change collation type to Latin1_General_CS_AS Commented Jul 17, 2012 at 7:46

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