Question

TIs ISNULL() a lazy function?

That is, if i code something like the following:

SELECT ISNULL(MYFIELD, getMyFunction()) FROM MYTABLE

will it always evaluate getMyFunction() or will it only evaluate it in the case where MYFIELD is actually null?

Answer 1

It’s whichever it thinks will work best.

Now it’s functionally lazy, which is the important thing. E.g. if col1 is a varchar which will always contain a number when col2 is null, then

isnull(col2, cast(col1 as int))

Will work.

However, it’s not specified whether it will try the cast before or simultaneously with the null-check and eat the error if col2 isn’t null, or if it will only try the cast at all if col2 is null.

At the very least, we would expect it to obtain col1 in any case because a single scan of a table obtaining 2 values is going to be faster than two scans obtaining one each.

The same SQL commands can be executed in very different ways, because the instructions we give are turned into lower-level operations based on knowledge of the indices and statistics about the tables.

For that reason, in terms of performance, the answer is “when it seems like it would be a good idea it is, otherwise it isn’t”.

In terms of observed behaviour, it is lazy.

Edit: Mikael Eriksson’s answer shows that there are cases that may indeed error due to not being lazy. I’ll stick by my answer here in terms of the performance impact, but his is vital in terms of correctness impact across at least some cases.