How do I return my records grouped by NULL and NOT NULL?

Question

I have a table that has a processed_timestamp column -- if a record has been processed then that field contains the datetime it was processed, otherwise it is null.

Answer 1

Another MySQL method is to use the CASE operator, which can be generalised to more alternatives than IF():

SELECT CASE WHEN processed_timestamp IS NULL THEN 'NULL' 
            ELSE 'NOT NULL' END AS a,
       COUNT(*) AS n 
       FROM logs 
       GROUP BY a

Answer 2

In MySQL you could do something like

SELECT 
    IF(ISNULL(processed_timestamp), 'NULL', 'NOT NULL') as myfield, 
    COUNT(*) 
FROM mytable 
GROUP BY myfield

Answer 3

Select Sum(Case When processed_timestamp IS NULL
                         Then 1
                         Else 0
                 End)                                                               not_processed_count,
          Sum(Case When processed_timestamp Is Not NULL
                         Then 1
                         Else 0
                 End)                                                               processed_count,
          Count(1)                                                                total
From table

Edit: didn't read carefully, this one returns a single row.

Answer 4

Stewart,

Maybe consider this solution. It is (also!) vendor non-specific.

SELECT count([processed_timestamp]) AS notnullrows, 
       count(*) - count([processed_timestamp]) AS nullrows 
FROM table

As for efficiency, this avoids 2x index seeks/table scans/whatever by including the results on one row. If you absolutely require 2 rows in the result, two passes over the set may be unavoidable because of unioning aggregates.

Hope this helps

Answer 5

If your database has an efficient COUNT(*) function for a table, you could COUNT whichever is the smaller number, and subtract.

Answer 6

Another way in T-sql (sql-server)

select  count(case when t.timestamps is null 
                    then 1 
                    else null end) NULLROWS,
        count(case when t.timestamps is not null 
                    then 1 
                    else null end) NOTNULLROWS
from myTable t