Using NULLIF() To Prevent Divide-By-Zero Errors In SQL

The idea here is that, as with any other form of math that I know of, you cannot divide by zero in a SQL call. Therefore, running this code:

	<!--- Do SQL division with no error protection. --->
	<cfquery name="qDivision" datasource="#REQUEST.DSN.Source#">
	SELECT
	( 45 / 0 ) AS value
	;
	</cfquery>

... results in a SQL error being thrown:

Error Executing Database Query. [Macromedia] [SQLServer JDBC Driver] [SQLServer] Divide by zero error encountered.

To prevent this sort of error from being thrown, author Hugo Kornelis suggests using a NULLIF() in the divisor of the equation. NULLIF() takes two arguments and returns NULL if the two values are the same and can be used to turn the divisor from a zero into a NULL which, in turn, will force the entire equation to become NULL. Therefore, running this code:

	<!--- Do SQL division with divide-by-zero protection. --->
	<cfquery name="qDivision" datasource="#REQUEST.DSN.Source#">
	SELECT
	( 45 / NULLIF( 0, 0 ) ) AS value
	;
	</cfquery>
	<!--- Output resulting value. --->
	[ #qDivision.value# ]

... we get the following output:

[ ]

Here, the NULLIF( 0, 0 ) returns NULL since zero is equal to zero, which gets the SQL statement to return NULL, which gets ColdFusion to show an empty string. This is a seemingly pointless example since both zero values are hard coded, but imagine if this were a user-entered value, or even better yet, a SQL aggregate or other calculated value (such as might be used in a report or data mining exercise).

Now, let's say you want to take this one step further and provide a default value for the equation if NULL is encountered (A default value, though not entirely accurate might make your consuming code more compact as it won't have to deal with exception cases). To set a default value, we could use the ISNULL() or COALESCE() functions:

	<!---
	Do SQL division with divide-by-zero protection. But this,
	time, let's provide a default value if the division is
	not valid.
	--->
	<cfquery name="qDivision" datasource="#REQUEST.DSN.Source#">
	SELECT
	(
	ISNULL(
	(45 / NULLIF( 0, 0 )),
	0
	)
	) AS value
	;
	</cfquery>
	<!--- Output resulting value. --->
	[ #qDivision.value# ]

Here, we are performing the division as we were above, but then, if that equation returns NULL, our ISNULL() function is going to catch that and return zero as its default value. Therefore, running the above code, we get the following output:

[ 0 ]

As someone who runs a ton of reports on database table (albeit, not in any educated way), this is going to come in very handy. I find that in most cases, having a zero is graphically equivalent to NULL and a whole lot easier to deal with.