Re: no return value from empty table

[Mark Jay Johansen]

Well, that's pretty much the specs of SQL: You get one row of output for 
each row in the table meeting the Where and Having criteria. If there are no 
such rows, then you get zero rows of output. What if your table has two 
rows? Are you expecting to get two rows of output or just one? Without 
knowing what you're really trying to accomplish it's hard to say much more, 
but I don't see how your question really makes sense: Like, "I want a list 
of all customers in New Hampshire, but if I have no customers in New 
Hampshire, tell me that there was one anyway."? If the question you're 
trying to ask is something more like, "Are there any ..." then perhaps you 
could write something like: 

select if (count(*)>0,"a","b") as test from table where column='string'; 

Thomas Svenson writes: 

Hi list, 

I'm new here so I don't know if this has been discussed earlier. 

I have a problem with the following:
  SELECT IF(column = 'string', 'a', 'b') AS test FROM table; 

It works just fine if the table is populated. However, if the table is empty
(which this one very well can be from time to time) I get no return value at
all. 

Is there any way I can get MySQL to return "test = b" if the table is empty? 

/T 

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