COALESCE and REPLACE Function

Question

I am trying to replace all null values in my query with \'\' as our interface won\'t accept NULL as an entry. Ive run into a piece of my code where im using the REPLACE functi

Answer 1

You can use the isnull function to replace null values:

replace(isnull(clients.CLIENT_ID_2, ''),'-','') as PatientSSN

The coalesce function can also be used in the same way. The only difference between isnull and coalesce is that isnull is specially intended to replace a null value so it only takes two parameter.

You can also use a case, then it would be:

case
  when clients.client_id_2 is null then ''
  else replace(clients.CLIENT_ID_2,'-','')
end as PatientSSN,