NULL values

Intermediate SQL

Jasmin Ludolf

Data Science Content Developer, DataCamp

Missing values

COUNT(field_name) includes only non-missing values
COUNT(*) includes missing values

null

Missing values:
- Human error
- Information not available
- Unknown

null

SELECT COUNT(*) AS count_records
FROM people;

|count_records|
|-------------|
|8397         |

SELECT *
FROM people;

|id|name              |birthdate |deathdate|
|--|------------------|----------|---------|
|1 |50 Cent           |1975-07-06|null     |
|2 |A. Michael Baldwin|1963-04-04|null     |
|3 |A. Raven Cruz     |null      |null     |
...

IS NULL

SELECT name
FROM people
WHERE birthdate IS NULL;

|name         |
|-------------|
|A. Raven Cruz|
|A.J. DeLucia |
|Aaron Hann   |
...

IS NOT NULL

SELECT COUNT(*) AS no_birthdates
FROM people
WHERE birthdate IS NULL;

|no_birthdates|
|-------------|
|2245         |

SELECT COUNT(name) AS count_birthdates
FROM people
WHERE birthdate IS NOT NULL;

|count_birthdates|
|----------------|
|6152            |

COUNT() vs IS NOT NULL

SELECT 
   COUNT(certification) 
   AS count_certification
FROM films;

|count_certification|
|-------------------|
|4666               |

SELECT 
   COUNT(certification) 
   AS count_certification
FROM films
WHERE certification IS NOT NULL;

|count_certification|
|-------------------|
|4666               |

NULL put simply

NULL values are missing values
Very common
Use IS NULL or IS NOT NULL to:
- Identify missing values
- Select missing values
- Exclude missing values

Let's practice!

Intermediate SQL