Greatest not null column
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by Álvaro G. Vicario
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Published on 2010-04-21T15:01:14Z
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2010/04/21
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I need to update a row with a formula based on the largest value of two DATETIME columns. I would normally do this:
GREATEST(date_one, date_two)
However, both columns are allowed to be NULL. I need the greatest date even when the other is NULL (of course, I expect NULL when both are NULL) and GREATEST() returns NULL when one of the columns is NULL.
This seems to work:
GREATEST(COALESCE(date_one, date_two), COALESCE(date_two, date_one))
But I wonder... am I missing a more straightforward method?
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