Display First Non-Null Values with COALESCE in MySQL

The coalesce() can be used to print first NOT NULL column value. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable1927
   (
   StudentName varchar(20),
   StudentSubject varchar(20)
   );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable1927 values('Chris','MySQL');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1927 values('David',NULL);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1927 values(NULL,'MongoDB');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1927;

This will produce the following output −

+-------------+----------------+
| StudentName | StudentSubject |
+-------------+----------------+
| Chris       |         MySQL  |
| David       |         NULL   |
| NULL        |      MongoDB   |
+-------------+----------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to implement coalesce() in MySQL −

mysql> select coalesce(StudentName,StudentSubject) as Result from DemoTable1927;

This will produce the following output −

+---------+
| Result  |
+---------+
| Chris   |
| David   |
| MongoDB |
+---------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)