Question

I have a simple SQL query (SQL Server 2005) where I’m selecting from a table that contains multiple columns that have BIT values.
These columns are nullable so can contain NULL, 0 or 1.

There are a fair number of these columns and in my query I want to return zero if the value is NULL.
I’m currently using ISNULL like so:

SELECT Name, Age, ISNULL(LikesOranges,0), ISNULL(LikesApples,0), ISNULL(LikesPears,0)
FROM FoodPreferences

As I’ve mentioned, there are a lot of these BIT columns (much more than in the simple example above).
Is there a way I can use ISNULL over multiple columns like this:

SELECT ISNULL(*,0) FROM FoodPreferences

The above query doesn’t work but you get what I’m trying to do – so I can avoid having to write an ISNULL statement for each column,

Thanks.

Answer 1

so I can avoid having to write an
ISNULL statement for each column,

Run this query and copy the result to your select statement. system_type_id = 104 filters the result on bit columns.

select stuff((select  ', isnull('+name+', 0)'
              from sys.columns
              where object_id = object_id('FoodPreferences') and 
                    system_type_id = 104
              for xml path('')), 1, 1, '')

Result:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 isnull(LikesOranges, 0), isnull(LikesApples, 0), isnull(LikesPears, 0)