Derby support for COALESCE

[Robert Enyedi]

Hi,

How does Derby support the COALESCE function? While the reference manual 
briefly mentions that this is a reserved word and there is SQLSTATE 
42610 related to it, it does not get into details. The function seems to 
work but (in a certain scenario which I did not identify yet) it 
produces a server side NullPointerException.

The functionality of COALESCE(x1, x2, x3, ...) returns the first item 
from the list which is not null.

Is COALESCE supported in Derby or is there a well documented alternative 
function which does the same thing?

Regards,
Robert