MySQL IFNULL: Handle Empty Strings & NULLs

In MySQL, the IFNULL function can be used to check for empty strings.

The grammar is as follows:

Here is the grammar:

IFNULL(expr1, expr2)

In the expression, if expr1 is NULL, then return the value of expr2. If expr1 is not NULL, then return the value of expr1.

To determine if a string is empty, the field being checked can be used as expr1 and an empty string can be used as expr2. If the field value is NULL or an empty string, the value of expr2 will be returned.

For example, if there is a table named users with a field called name, and you need to check if the name field is an empty string, you can use the following query:

SELECT IFNULL(name, '') AS name FROM users;

The above query will return a field named “name”. If the “name” field is NULL or an empty string, an empty string will be returned. If the “name” field is not empty, its value will be returned.