Posted by Rico on 09/25/47 11:45

Excellent! Thanks!


"Hugo Kornelis" <hugo@perFact.REMOVETHIS.info.INVALID> wrote in message
news:vttf42107btt07jbk21cvb6953kediiarp@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:58:14 GMT, "Rico" <r c o l l e n s @ h e m m i n
> g w a y . c o mREMOVE THIS PART IN CAPS> wrote:
>
>>Thanks Guys,
>>
>>I wound up finding ISNULL before I had a chance to post back. (why do I
>>always find the solution right after I post).
>>
>>Is there an argument for using Coalesce over IsNull?
>
> Hi Rico,
>
> Three!
>
> 1. COALESCE is ANSI-standard and hence more portable. ISNULL works only
> on SQL Server.
>
> 2. COALESCE takes more than two arguments. If you have to find the first
> non-NULL of a set of six arguments, ISNULL has to be nested. Not so with
> COALESCE.
>
> 3. Data conversion weirdness. The datatype of a COALESCE is the datatype
> with highest precedence of all datatypes used in the COALESCE (same as
> with any SQL expression). Not so for ISNULL - the datatype of ISNULL is
> the same as the first argument. This is extremely non-standard and can
> cause very nasty and hard-to-track-down bugs.
>
> --
> Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server MVP

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