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From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Wo...with_NULL.html


3.3.4.6 Working with NULL Values



The NULL value can be surprising until you get used to it. Conceptually, NULL means missing value or unknown value and it is treated somewhat differently than other values. To test for NULL, you cannot use the arithmetic comparison operators such as =, <, or <>. To demonstrate this for yourself, try the following query:

mysql> SELECT 1 = NULL, 1 <> NULL, 1 < NULL, 1 > NULL;+----------+-----------+----------+----------+| 1 = NULL | 1 <> NULL | 1 < NULL | 1 > NULL |+----------+-----------+----------+----------+| NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |+----------+-----------+----------+----------+Clearly you get no meaningful results from these comparisons. Use the IS NULL and IS NOT NULL operators instead:

mysql> SELECT 1 IS NULL, 1 IS NOT NULL;+-----------+---------------+| 1 IS NULL | 1 IS NOT NULL |+-----------+---------------+| 0 | 1 |+-----------+---------------+Note that in MySQL, 0 or NULL means false and anything else means true. The default truth value from a boolean operation is 1.

This special treatment of NULL is why, in the previous section, it was necessary to determine which animals are no longer alive using death IS NOT NULL instead of death <> NULL.

Two NULL values are regarded as equal in a GROUP BY.

When doing an ORDER BY, NULL values are presented first if you do ORDER BY ... ASC and last if you do ORDER BY ... DESC.

Note that MySQL 4.0.2 to 4.0.10 incorrectly always sorts NULL values first regardless of the sort direction.

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From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Pattern_matching.html

3.3.4.7 Pattern Matching



MySQL provides standard SQL pattern matching as well as a form of pattern matching based on extended regular expressions similar to those used by Unix utilities such as vi, grep, and sed.

SQL pattern matching allows you to use `_' to match any single character and `%' to match an arbitrary number of characters (including zero characters). In MySQL, SQL patterns are case-insensitive by default. Some examples are shown here. Note that you do not use = or <> when you use SQL patterns; use the LIKE or NOT LIKE comparison operators instead.

To find names beginning with `b':

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name LIKE 'b%';+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+| Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL || Bowser | Diane | dog | m | 1989-08-31 | 1995-07-29 |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+To find names ending with `fy':

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name LIKE '%fy';+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| Fluffy | Harold | cat | f | 1993-02-04 | NULL || Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+To find names containing a `w':

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name LIKE '%w%';+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+| Claws | Gwen | cat | m | 1994-03-17 | NULL || Bowser | Diane | dog | m | 1989-08-31 | 1995-07-29 || Whistler | Gwen | bird | NULL | 1997-12-09 | NULL |+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+To find names containing exactly five characters, use five instances of the `_' pattern character:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name LIKE '_____';+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| Claws | Gwen | cat | m | 1994-03-17 | NULL || Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+The other type of pattern matching provided by MySQL uses extended regular expressions. When you test for a match for this type of pattern, use the REGEXP and NOT REGEXP operators (or RLIKE and NOT RLIKE, which are synonyms).

Some characteristics of extended regular expressions are:

• `.' matches any single character.
• A character class `[...]' matches any character within the brackets. For example, `[abc]' matches `a', `b', or `c'. To name a range of characters, use a dash. `[a-z]' matches any letter, whereas `[0-9]' matches any digit.
• `*' matches zero or more instances of the thing preceding it. For example, `x*' matches any number of `x' characters, `[0-9]*' matches any number of digits, and `.*' matches any number of anything.
• A REGEXP pattern match succeed if the pattern matches anywhere in the value being tested. (This differs from a LIKE pattern match, which succeeds only if the pattern matches the entire value.)
• To anchor a pattern so that it must match the beginning or end of the value being tested, use `^' at the beginning or `$' at the end of the pattern.

To demonstrate how extended regular expressions work, the LIKE queries shown previously are rewritten here to use REGEXP.

To find names beginning with `b', use `^' to match the beginning of the name:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP '^b';+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+| Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL || Bowser | Diane | dog | m | 1989-08-31 | 1995-07-29 |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+------------+Prior to MySQL Version 3.23.4, REGEXP is case-sensitive, and the previous query will return no rows. In this case, to match either lowercase or uppercase `b', use this query instead:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP '^[bB]';From MySQL 3.23.4 on, if you really want to force a REGEXP comparison to be case-sensitive, use the BINARY keyword to make one of the strings a binary string. This query will match only lowercase `b' at the beginning of a name:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP BINARY '^b';To find names ending with `fy', use `$' to match the end of the name:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP 'fy$';+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| Fluffy | Harold | cat | f | 1993-02-04 | NULL || Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL |+--------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+To find names containing a `w', use this query:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP 'w';+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+| Claws | Gwen | cat | m | 1994-03-17 | NULL || Bowser | Diane | dog | m | 1989-08-31 | 1995-07-29 || Whistler | Gwen | bird | NULL | 1997-12-09 | NULL |+----------+-------+---------+------+------------+------------+Because a regular expression pattern matches if it occurs anywhere in the value, it is not necessary in the previous query to put a wildcard on either side of the pattern to get it to match the entire value like it would be if you used an SQL pattern.

To find names containing exactly five characters, use `^' and `$' to match the beginning and end of the name, and five instances of `.' in between:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP '^.....$';+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| Claws | Gwen | cat | m | 1994-03-17 | NULL || Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+You could also write the previous query using the `{n}' ``repeat-n-times'' operator:

mysql> SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP '^.{5}$';+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| name | owner | species | sex | birth | death |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+| Claws | Gwen | cat | m | 1994-03-17 | NULL || Buffy | Harold | dog | f | 1989-05-13 | NULL |+-------+--------+---------+------+------------+-------+

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From http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Counting_rows.html

3.3.4.8 Counting Rows



Databases are often used to answer the question, ``How often does a certain type of data occur in a table?'' For example, you might want to know how many pets you have, or how many pets each owner has, or you might want to perform various kinds of census operations on your animals.

Counting the total number of animals you have is the same question as ``How many rows are in the pet table?'' because there is one record per pet. COUNT(*) counts the number of rows, so the query to count your animals looks like this:

mysql> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM pet;+----------+| COUNT(*) |+----------+| 9 |+----------+Earlier, you retrieved the names of the people who owned pets. You can use COUNT() if you want to find out how many pets each owner has:

mysql> SELECT owner, COUNT(*) FROM pet GROUP BY owner;+--------+----------+| owner | COUNT(*) |+--------+----------+| Benny | 2 || Diane | 2 || Gwen | 3 || Harold | 2 |+--------+----------+Note the use of GROUP BY to group together all records for each owner. Without it, all you get is an error message:

mysql> SELECT owner, COUNT(*) FROM pet;ERROR 1140: Mixing of GROUP columns (MIN(),MAX(),COUNT()...)with no GROUP columns is illegal if there is no GROUP BY clauseCOUNT() and GROUP BY are useful for characterizing your data in various ways. The following examples show different ways to perform animal census operations.

Number of animals per species:

mysql> SELECT species, COUNT(*) FROM pet GROUP BY species;+---------+----------+| species | COUNT(*) |+---------+----------+| bird | 2 || cat | 2 || dog | 3 || hamster | 1 || snake | 1 |+---------+----------+Number of animals per sex:

mysql> SELECT sex, COUNT(*) FROM pet GROUP BY sex;+------+----------+| sex | COUNT(*) |+------+----------+| NULL | 1 || f | 4 || m | 4 |+------+----------+(In this output, NULL indicates that the sex is unknown.)

Number of animals per combination of species and sex:

mysql> SELECT species, sex, COUNT(*) FROM pet GROUP BY species, sex;+---------+------+----------+| species | sex | COUNT(*) |+---------+------+----------+| bird | NULL | 1 || bird | f | 1 || cat | f | 1 || cat | m | 1 || dog | f | 1 || dog | m | 2 || hamster | f | 1 || snake | m | 1 |+---------+------+----------+You need not retrieve an entire table when you use COUNT(). For example, the previous query, when performed just on dogs and cats, looks like this:

mysql> SELECT species, sex, COUNT(*) FROM pet -> WHERE species = 'dog' OR species = 'cat' -> GROUP BY species, sex;+---------+------+----------+| species | sex | COUNT(*) |+---------+------+----------+| cat | f | 1 || cat | m | 1 || dog | f | 1 || dog | m | 2 |+---------+------+----------+Or, if you wanted the number of animals per sex only for known-sex animals:

mysql> SELECT species, sex, COUNT(*) FROM pet -> WHERE sex IS NOT NULL -> GROUP BY species, sex;+---------+------+----------+| species | sex | COUNT(*) |+---------+------+----------+| bird | f | 1 || cat | f | 1 || cat | m | 1 || dog | f | 1 || dog | m | 2 || hamster | f | 1 || snake | m | 1 |+---------+------+----------+