Question

When I create a temp table using a select into in SQL Server, is there a way to specify that a column should be nullable? I have a multi-step process where I’m making a temp table by selecting a lot of columns (which is why I’m not doing a create table #tmp (...)). After I make that temp table, I’m updating some columns and some of those updates might null out a field.

I know I could do an alter table alter column statement to achieve what I want, but I’m curious about whether there’s a way to specify this in the select itself. I know you can inline cast your columns to get the desired datatype, but I can’t see how you specify nullability.

Answer 1

Nullability is inherited from the source column.

You can lose or gain nullability with an expression:

Example (constant literals appear to be problematic – need a good NOOP function which can return NULL):

CREATE TABLE SO5465245_IN
    (
     a INT NOT NULL
    ,b INT NULL
    ) ;
GO

SELECT  COALESCE(a, NULL) AS a
       ,ISNULL(b, 0) AS b
       ,COALESCE(10, NULL) AS c1
       ,COALESCE(ABS(10), NULL) AS c2
       ,CASE WHEN COALESCE(10, NULL) IS NOT NULL THEN COALESCE(10, NULL) ELSE NULL END AS c3
INTO    SO5465245_OUT
FROM    SO5465245_IN ;
GO

SELECT  TABLE_NAME
       ,COLUMN_NAME
       ,IS_NULLABLE
FROM    INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE   TABLE_NAME LIKE 'SO5465245%'
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME
       ,ORDINAL_POSITION ;
GO

DROP TABLE SO5465245_IN ;
GO

DROP TABLE SO5465245_OUT ;
GO