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Using the Transact SQL Coalesce Statement

The Transact SQL Coalesce function is an extremely useful piece of syntax to know as it can be used in place of other longer SQL Server syntax.

Given a number of arguments, the Coalesce function will return the first argument that does not have a value of null. Note that if all of the arguments are null, Coalesce itself will return null!

Incidentally, the case function can often be used instead of coalesce - see the article "Using the Transact SQL Case Statement".

Using the Coalesce Statement in Select Queries

The example below selects employee names and their telephone numbers from the SQL Server Northwind sample database. The coalesce function is used to return the first non-null value for a phone number as the PhoneNumber column. So if HomePhone is null, then the value of the Extension column will be returned instead. If the employee has neither a HomePhone or Extension then the value for PhoneNumber will be null.

SELECT LastName, FirstName, COALESCE(HomePhone, Extension) AS PhoneNumber FROM Employees

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