NULL Values and the GROUP BY Clause by Maria Alcaraz 27 Apr 2017 We've already covered how to use the GROUP BY clause and some aggregation functions like SUM(), AVG(), MAX(), MIN(), COUNT(). In this article, we will explain how the GROUP BY clause works when NULL values are involved. We will also explain about using NULLs with the ORDER BY clause. In SQL, NULL is a special marker used to indicate that a data value does not exist in the database. For more details, check out Wikipedia's explanation of NULL in SQL. Read more Understanding the Use of NULL in SQL Three-Valued Logic by Maria Alcaraz 15 Mar 2017 NULLs are necessary in relational databases, and learning to use them is fundamental to SQL success. However, NULLs should also be handled with care, as we explain in this post. In relational databases, we don’t always have a value to put in a column. For example, suppose we have a table called “persons” that has “first_name”, “last_name”, “birth_date” and “marriage_date” columns. What value will we store in the “marriage_date” column for single persons? Read more How to Tackle SQL NULLs: COALESCE function by Patrycja Dybka 20 Oct 2016 It's inevitable that some data in the database has no value what in SQL is represented by the NULL keyword. "No value" here is different from zero, false, or an empty string (but with exceptions! In Oracle database, NULL is the same as string of zero length). During playing with the database, treating NULLs are becoming more and more troublesome, therefore >MySQL standard provides help with some of the functions, like COALESCE. Read more