Oracle SQL statement - substitute null values

do this:

select id, nvl(data, data2) from mytable;

or decode() function:

select id, decode(data, NULL, data2, data) from mytable;

Something like:

select id, decode(data, NULL, data, data2) as selected_data
from mytable;

Hi there is a function in 9i called NVL2. The syntax for this is NVL2(expr1, expr2, expr3). If expr1 is null then expr2 is returned. If expr1 is not null then expr3 is returned. You might use:

select id, nvl2(data, data2, data) from mytable;

seazodiac's solution is simple and will work.

hi,

thanks for the answers, but I still have problems.

This is my table:
  id - number
  data - varchar2
  data2 - long raw

When I use the nvl function I get the following error:

select id, nvl(data, data2) from mytable;
ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected NUMBER got BINARY

when I use the decode function I get this:

select id, decode(data, NULL, data2, data) from mytable;
ORA-00997: illegal use of LONG datatype

Any idea?

try this one
because you are using a string data type and a long one in decode you should only use  same type of data type


select id, decode(data, NULL, to_char(data2), data) from mytable

to_char was my 1st idea also, but this is the result:

ORA-00932: inconsistent datatypes: expected CHAR got BINARY

If I'm not wrong Long raw is used to store graphics, sound, documents, or arrays of binary data and it cannot be selected using SQL*Plus .  That why you got error ORA-00932 .

I think solution is  create a table and convert the Long Raw data type to BLOB then select it as:

SQL>Create table mytable_2 (id number, data varchar2, data2 blob);
table created
SQL>insert into mytable_2  select id, data,  to_lob(data2) from mytable;

TO_LOB is used to covert Long Raw to BLOB (8.1x or higher)

Then

SQL> select id, decode(data, NULL, to_char(data2), data) from mytable

imagine you have an indexe on data and it's a big table with decode you are going to make a full scan , is'nt it ???