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I have a table that I wish to find the first non-null value from 3 (and only 3) columns for each ID starting with Col1 then to Col2 then to Col3
Note: Col3 is NEVER NULL
ID Col1 Col2 Col3
------------------------------
1 A B X
2 NULL C X
3 NULL NULL X
4 D NULL X
To get the correct column for each value I use the following SQL Select
SELECT ID,
COALESCE(Col1, Col2, Col3) AS Col
FROM MyTable
which returns the following and works just fine
ID Col
-------------
1 A
2 C
3 X
4 D
What I want is a third column returned indicating which column the coalesce was successful on. The following is the result set that I wish to produce:
ID Col Source
-----------------------
1 A Col1
2 C Col2
3 X Col3
4 D Col1
845
The COALESCE() function returns the first non-null value in a list.
The coalesce in MySQL can be used to return first not null value. If there are multiple columns, and all columns have NULL value then it returns NULL otherwise it will return first not null value. The syntax is as follows. SELECT COALESCE(yourColumnName1,yourColumnName2,yourColumnName3,.......
SQL COALESCE and CASE expressionSELECT COALESCE (expression1, expression2, expression3) FROM TABLENAME; The above Coalesce SQL statement can be rewritten using the CASE statement. The query returns the same result as the one that uses the COALESCE function.
The COALESCE expression returns the first non-null expression. If all expressions evaluate to NULL, then the COALESCE expression return NULL; Because the COALESCE is an expression, you can use it in any clause that accepts an expression such as SELECT , WHERE , GROUP BY , and HAVING .
Perhaps this will work?
SELECT ID,
COALESCE(Col1, Col2, Col3) AS Col,
CASE COALESCE(Col1, Col2, Col3)
WHEN Col1 THEN 'Col1'
WHEN Col2 THEN 'Col2'
WHEN Col3 THEN 'Col3'
ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS Source
FROM MyTable
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