In this case, MySQL will provide a NULL value to the SET clause. Following example will demonstrate it −
Example
mysql> Select * from student; +----+---------+-----------+ | Id | Name | grade | +----+---------+-----------+ | 1 | Rahul | Good | | 2 | Gaurav | Good | | 3 | Raman | Excellent | | 4 | Harshit | Average | | 5 | Aarav | Best | | 6 | Ram | average | +----+---------+-----------+ 6 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> select * from info; +------+-----------+ | id | remarks | +------+-----------+ | 1 | Good | | 2 | Good | | 3 | Excellent | | 4 | Average | | 5 | Best | +------+-----------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec)
From the above two table, we can see ‘student’ table is having 6 rows and the value of ‘grade’ is ‘average’ where id = 6 and ‘info’ table is having 5 rows. Now the sub-query used in the following query will provide no rows to give new values in SET clause hence it will insert a NULL value. It can be examined from the output of following queries −
mysql> UPDATE STUDENT SET grade = (SELECT remarks from info WHERE info.id = student.id) WHERE id = 6; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.04 sec) Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0 mysql> Select * from student; +----+---------+-----------+ | Id | Name | grade | +----+---------+-----------+ | 1 | Rahul | Good | | 2 | Gaurav | Good | | 3 | Raman | Excellent | | 4 | Harshit | Average | | 5 | Aarav | Best | | 6 | Ram | NULL | +----+---------+-----------+ 6 rows in set (0.00 sec)