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Asked: 2026-05-26T00:13:50+00:00

I have to concatenate 2 columns (ex. FIRSTANME and LASTNAME). I do it this

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I have to concatenate 2 columns (ex. FIRSTANME and LASTNAME).
I do it this way: 

FIRSTNAME || ' ' || LASTNAME`.

If one of them is null, but the other one is not null, I get null as concatenation result.
And I want following behavior 

FIRSTNAME = null and LASTNAME = "Smith" ==> 
  FIRSTANME || ' ' || LASTNAME == ' Smith'.

How to solve this in DB2?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Use coalesce 

    ...
CONCAT( COALESCE(firstname,'') , COALESCE(lastname,'') )

    Or using the || concat operator

    ...
COALESCE(firstname,'') || COALESCE(lastname,'')

    Note that IBM recomments using the keyword concat and not the || operator.

    Concat: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/dzichelp/v2r2/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.db2.doc.sqlref%2Ffconc.htm
    Coalesce: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/dzichelp/v2r2/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.db2.doc.sqlref%2Ffcoal.htm

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