SQL Server: Handling Divide By Zero Error

Often SQL developers encounter "Divide by zero" error. This is because in an arithmetic
expression, when the divisor is zero (0), the expression throws an error. If you want to simply return NULL instead of an error, you can use one of the following methods

Method 1 : Use CASE expression

declare @var1 int ,@var2 int
select @var1=763, @var2=0
select @var1/case when @var2 =0 then null else @var2 end

OUTPUT



Method 2 : Use NULLIF function

declare @var1 int ,@var2 int
select @var1=763, @var2=0
select @var1/nullif(@var2,0)

The NULLIF function compares the first parameter (var2) with second parameter (0). If they are same, it returns a NULL

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About The Author

Madhivanan,an MSc computer Science graduate from Chennai-India, works as an Assistant Project Manager at Ellaar Infotek Solutions Private Limited. He started his career as a developer working with Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 2000 and Crystal Report 8. As years went by, he started working more on writing queries in SQL Server. He now has good level of knowledge in SQLServer, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL as well. He is also one of the leading posters at www.sqlteam.com and a moderator at www.sql-server-performance.com. His T-sql blog is at http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan

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