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Asked: 2026-05-25T12:46:17+00:00

ANSI-92 SQL mandates that comparisons with NULL evaluate to falsy, eg: SELECT * FROM

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ANSI-92 SQL mandates that comparisons with NULL evaluate to “falsy,” eg:

SELECT * FROM table WHERE field = NULL
SELECT * FROM table WHERE field != NULL

Will both return no rows because NULL can’t be compared like that. Instead, the predicates IS NULL and IS NOT NULL have to be used instead:

SELECT * FROM table WHERE field IS NULL
SELECT * FROM table WHERE field IS NOT NULL

Research has shown me that Oracle 1, PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite all support the ANSI syntax. Add to that list DB2 and Firebird.

Aside from SQL Server with ANSI_NULLS turned off, what other RDBMS support the non-ANSI syntax?

1 The whole empty string = NULL mess notwithstanding.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Here is a nice comparison of null handling in SQLite, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Informix, DB2, MS-SQL, OCELOT, MySQL 3.23.41, MySQL 4.0.16, Firebird, SQL Anywhere, and Borland Interbase

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