Daniel Janik shows a pair of non-standard functions you can use to replace NULL values:
It’s Wednesday and that means another SQL/Oracle post. Today we’ll be discussing NULL Values, which can sometimes be a real pain. Don’t worry though there’s a simple solution. Simply replace the NULL value with another.
Comparing a column with NULL and replacing with another value is really simple. There are built in functions for replacing NULL values. I’m not going to discuss the ANSI standard COALESCE here. If you want to know more about it you can find it on Bing.
I provide no comment on Daniel’s claim regarding being able to find something on Bing… Click through to see the custom NULL replacement functions in SQL Server versus Oracle.