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Null Values: CHAPTER 5 (6/E) CHAPTER 8 (5/E)

This document discusses how SQL handles null values. Null values represent unknown or missing data and are treated differently than regular values. SQL uses three-valued logic to handle comparisons involving nulls. Null values are ignored by aggregation functions but treated as equal by grouping and set operations. Outer joins are used to return all rows from one or both tables even when there are no matches.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
111 views13 pages

Null Values: CHAPTER 5 (6/E) CHAPTER 8 (5/E)

This document discusses how SQL handles null values. Null values represent unknown or missing data and are treated differently than regular values. SQL uses three-valued logic to handle comparisons involving nulls. Null values are ignored by aggregation functions but treated as equal by grouping and set operations. Outer joins are used to return all rows from one or both tables even when there are no matches.

Uploaded by

MNaveedsdk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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NULL VALUES

CHAPTER 5 (6/E)
CHAPTER 8 (5/E)

1
LECTURE OUTLINE
 Dealing with null values
• Three-valued logic
• Effects in WHERE clauses
• IS NULL
• Effects on aggregation
• Effects on GROUP BY, set operations, and SELECT DISTINCT
• Treatment in ORDER BY clauses
• Effects in CHECK constraints
 Outer joins

2
SEMANTICS OF NULL
 Recall possible meanings of NULL
• Unknown value
• Unavailable or withheld value
• Not applicable attribute
 Each stored NULL value incomparable to every other stored value
• Even if other value also NULL
• unknown ≟ 5  unknown
• unknown ≟ unknown  unknown
• Comparisons involving unknown values are neither true nor false.
 Thus, SQL uses a three-valued logic:
• TRUE, FALSE, and UNKNOWN

3
THREE-VALUED LOGIC

 Similarly, any operation involving an unknown value produces an


unknown value for the result.
• e.g., unknown + 5  unknown

4
EVALUATING WHERE
 Recall that WHERE clause evaluates each tuple in turn and returns
only those for which the condition evaluates to true.
 Tuples that evaluate to false or unknown are rejected.
• Cannot use
WHERE phone = NULL
to test for null value in a tuple.
 Many tautologies do not hold for columns with NULLs.
• e.g., no “law of the excluded middle”
SELECT *
FROM Student
WHERE age > 18 OR NOT age > 18
might not return all Student tuples

6
IS NULL
 Most SQL operators are NULL-intolerant.
• They return unknown if an operand is NULL.
 SQL provides special test that is NULL-tolerant
IS [NOT] NULL

 Need to account for NULLs when formulating queries


• Not handling NULLs is a common source of errors

7
WHEN NULLS ARE IGNORED
 Consider aggregating values for budget in the following.
e.g., max(budget), sum(budget), average(budget)
Film
title genre year director minutes budget gross

• NULL values in tuples ignored for aggregation (even for COUNT)


• Only non-NULL values included in aggregations.
• i.e., sum() handled differently from +
• Example:
SELECT COUNT(*), COUNT(budget), AVERAGE(gross-budget)
FROM Film
WHERE genre = 'comedy';
• all comedies counted for first aggregation;
• only comedies with non-NULL budget counted for second aggregation;
• only comedies with non-NULL budget and non-NULL gross included in
third aggregation

8
WHEN ALL NULLS ARE TREATED EQUAL
 Grouping and set operations treat all NULLs as the same value
• e.g., GROUP BY budget forms separate group for all tuples with
NULL value in budget
• Similarly for set operations: all NULLs treated as if a single value
• e.g., {(A,B,NULL),(A,B,C)} ∩ {(A,B,D),(A,B,NULL)} = {(A,B,NULL)}
(SELECT genre, budget
FROM Film
WHERE gross > 15000000)
UNION
(SELECT genre, budget
FROM Film
WHERE year > 2000)
• Similarly, too, for duplicate elimination with SELECT DISTINCT
 Finally ORDER BY
• NULLs sorted together, but sort order with respect to other values
is implementation-dependent

9
NULLS IN SQL’S DDL
 By default, must be aware of possible NULLs for all columns.
 Recall, however, a column can be declared NOT NULL.
• NULL values cannot occur; querying simplified
• Recall: Primary key columns must be declared NOT NULL

 Unlike WHERE clause, CHECK constraints and FOREIGN KEY


constraints ensure that no tuple returns false.
• Therefore NULLs accepted
• e.g.,
CHECK (age > 18)
allows tuples with NULL value for age

11
JOIN OPERATOR
 For convenience, SQL’s join operator (algebra’s ⋈<𝑗𝑜𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛> )
• Permits users to specify a table resulting from a join operation
Table1 [INNER] JOIN Table2 ON <condition>
• May appear in the FROM clause of a query
• Keyword INNER is optional
• Result is a single joined table
• Equivalent to including <condition> in WHERE clause
• Number of rows in result in range [0,|Table1|*|Table2|]
• Data from Table1 appear in result only if matching row exists in Table2.
• Data from Table2 appear in result only if matching row exists in Table1.

12
LEFT OUTER JOIN OPERATOR
 Every tuple in left table appears in result
• If matching tuple(s) in right table, works like inner join
• If no matching tuple in right table, one tuple in result with left tuple
values padded with NULL values for columns of right table
Table1 LEFT [OUTER] JOIN Table2 ON <condition>
SELECT *
FROM Customer LEFT JOIN Sale ON Customer.custid = Sale.custid
Customer Sale
custid name address phone saleid date custid
1205 Lee 633 S. First 555-1219 A17 5 Dec 3122
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 B823 5 Dec 1697
2134 Smith 213 Main 555-1234 B219 9 Dec 3122
1697 Ng 5 Queen N. 555-0025 C41 15 Dec 1205
3982 Harrison 808 Main 555-4829 X00 23 Dec NULL

Customer.custid name address phone saleid date Sale.custid


1205 Lee 633 S. First 555-1219 C41 15 Dec 1205
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 A17 5 Dec 3122
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 B219 9 Dec 3122
2134 Smith 213 Main 555-1234 NULL NULL NULL
1697 Ng 5 Queen N. 555-0025 B823 5 Dec 1697

13
3982 Harrison 808 Main 555-4829 NULL NULL NULL
OTHER OUTER JOIN OPERATORS
 Table1 RIGHT [OUTER] JOIN Table2 ON <condition>
• Every tuple in right table appears in result (padded on left if needed)
 Table1 FULL [OUTER] JOIN Table2 ON <condition>
• Every tuple in either table appears in result (padded if needed)
SELECT *
FROM Customer FULL JOIN Sale ON Customer.custid = Sale.custid
Customer Sale
custid name address phone saleid date custid
1205 Lee 633 S. First 555-1219 A17 5 Dec 3122
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 B823 5 Dec 1697
2134 Smith 213 Main 555-1234 B219 9 Dec 3122
1697 Ng 5 Queen N. 555-0025 C41 15 Dec 1205
3982 Harrison 808 Main 555-4829 X00 23 Dec 0000

Customer.custid name address phone saleid date Sale.custid


1205 Lee 633 S. First 555-1219 C41 15 Dec 1205
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 A17 5 Dec 3122
3122 Willis 41 King 555-9876 B219 9 Dec 3122
2134 Smith 213 Main 555-1234 NULL NULL NULL
1697 Ng 5 Queen N. 555-0025 B823 5 Dec 1697
3982 Harrison 808 Main 555-4829 NULL NULL NULL

14
NULL NULL NULL NULL X00 23 Dec 0000
LECTURE SUMMARY
 NULL values need careful consideration.
• Most operators are NULL-intolerant.
• Some queries must use IS [NOT] NULL to operate correctly.
• Aggregations ignore NULLs.
• Partitioning and set operators treat all NULLs as equal.
• Check constraints are NULL-tolerant.
• Include NOT NULL for column declarations where appropriate.
• Recall: required for primary keys
 Outer joins
• LEFT, RIGHT, and FULL

16

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