Addition with NULL values

Question

In a stored procedure (Oracle in my case), I want to add some values to an existing record. Problem is that both the existing value and the value to be added can be null. I

Answer 1

I accomplished it this way:

coalesce("Column1",0.00) + coalesce("Column2",0.00)

I'm working with front end high level execs.... They don't understand why NULL and 0 aren't handled the same way.

In my case it works, just replacing NULLs with 0.00... may not in all though :)