MySQL Sum() multiple columns

Question

I have a table of student scorecard. here is the table,

subject  | mark1 | mark2 | mark3 |......|markn
stud1    | 99    | 87    | 92    |      | 46
stud2            


        

Answer 1

If any of your markn columns are "AllowNull" then you will need to do a little extra to insure the correct result is returned, this is because 1 NULL value will result in a NULL total.

This is what i would consider to be the correct answer.

SUM(IFNULL(`mark1`, 0) + IFNULL(`mark2`, 0) + IFNULL(`mark3`, 0)) AS `total_marks` 

IFNULL will return the 2nd parameter if the 1st is NULL. COALESCE could be used but i prefer to only use it if it is required. See What is the difference bewteen ifnull and coalesce in mysql?

SUM-ing the entire calculation is tidier than SUM-ing each column individually.

SELECT `student`, SUM(IFNULL(`mark1`, 0) + IFNULL(`mark2`, 0) + IFNULL(`mark3`, 0)) AS `total_marks` 
FROM student_scorecard
GROUP BY `student`