Lesson Agenda

• Implicit and explicit data type conversion

• TO_CHAR, TO_DATE, TO_NUMBER functions

4
• Nesting functions
Using General Functions and • General functions:
– NVL
Conditional Expressions
– NVL2
– NULLIF
– COALESCE
• Conditional expressions:
– CASE
– DECODE

Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. 4-2 Copyright © 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.

General Functions NVL Function

The following functions work with any data type and pertain to Converts a null value to an actual value:
using nulls: • Data types that can be used are date, character, and
• NVL (expr1, expr2) number.
• NVL2 (expr1, expr2, expr3) • Data types must match:
• NULLIF (expr1, expr2) – NVL(commission_pct,0)
• COALESCE (expr1, expr2, ..., exprn) – NVL(hire_date,'01-JAN-97')
– NVL(job_id,'No Job Yet')

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Using the NVL Function Using the NVL2 Function

NVL2 checks whether the value is NULL or NOT. If not NULL,
use the first expression, if null, use the second expression.
1
SELECT last_name, salary, NVL(commission_pct, 0),
(salary*12) + (salary*12*NVL(commission_pct, 0)) AN_SAL 2 SELECT last_name, salary, commission_pct, 1
FROM employees; NVL2(commission_pct,
'SAL+COMM', 'SAL') income 2
FROM employees WHERE department_id IN (50, 80);

… 2
1 2 1

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 Using the NULLIF Function Using the COALESCE Function

1
• The advantage of the COALESCE function over the NVL
SELECT first_name, LENGTH(first_name) "expr1", function is that the COALESCE function can take multiple
last_name, LENGTH(last_name) "expr2", 2 alternate values.
NULLIF(LENGTH(first_name), LENGTH(last_name)) result 3 • If the first expression is not null, the COALESCE function
FROM employees;
returns that expression; otherwise, it does a COALESCE of
the remaining expressions.

1 2 3

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Using the COALESCE Function Lesson Agenda

SELECT last_name, employee_id,

COALESCE(TO_CHAR(commission_pct),TO_CHAR(manager_id) • Implicit and explicit data type conversion
, • TO_CHAR, TO_DATE, TO_NUMBER functions
'No commission and no manager')
FROM employees; • Nesting functions
• General functions:
– NVL
– NVL2
– NULLIF
– COALESCE
• Conditional expressions:
… – CASE
– DECODE

…
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Conditional Expressions CASE Expression

• Provide the use of the IF-THEN-ELSE logic within a SQL Facilitates conditional inquiries by doing the work of an
statement IF-THEN-ELSE statement:
• Use two methods:
CASE expr WHEN comparison_expr1 THEN return_expr1
– CASE expression
[WHEN comparison_expr2 THEN return_expr2
– DECODE function WHEN comparison_exprn THEN return_exprn
ELSE else_expr]
END

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 Using the CASE Expression DECODE Function

Facilitates conditional inquiries by doing the work of an Facilitates conditional inquiries by doing the work of a CASE
IF-THEN-ELSE statement: expression or an IF-THEN-ELSE statement:
SELECT last_name, job_id, salary,
CASE job_id WHEN 'IT_PROG' THEN 1.10*salary DECODE(col|expression, search1, result1
WHEN 'ST_CLERK' THEN 1.15*salary [, search2, result2,...,]
WHEN 'SA_REP' THEN 1.20*salary [, default])
ELSE salary END "REVISED_SALARY"
FROM employees;

…
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Using the DECODE Function Using the DECODE Function

Display the applicable tax rate for each employee in department

SELECT last_name, job_id, salary, 80:
DECODE(job_id, 'IT_PROG', 1.10*salary,
'ST_CLERK', 1.15*salary, SELECT last_name, salary,
'SA_REP', 1.20*salary, DECODE (TRUNC(salary/2000, 0),
salary) 0, 0.00,
REVISED_SALARY 1, 0.09,
FROM employees; 2, 0.20,
3, 0.30,
4, 0.40,
… 5, 0.42,
6, 0.44,
0.45) TAX_RATE
… FROM employees
WHERE department_id = 80;

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Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to:

• Alter date formats for display using functions
• Convert column data types using functions
• Use NVL functions
• Use IF-THEN-ELSE logic and other conditional
expressions in a SELECT statement

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