sum columns in same row

[blackbox]

Hello all,

I have the requirement to find the sum of a number of fields in one data row.

In short I have the following:

SELECT Seq01 + Seq02+Seq03+Seq04  as ItemSum FROM Tablename 

The issue I have is if one of the fields is null the query fails. How can I get around this?

Any help would be great.

[bradgrafelman]

Does "NULL" have special meaning for the fields? In other words, did you really mean to use NULL, or is a default value of 0 more appropriate?

[blackbox]

Hi Bradgrafelman,

thanks for your reply.

The fields would be "empty" of data.

Many thanks

[laserlight]

Out of curiosity, but why do you have to sum across fields? I'm not saying that this is always wrong, but it tends to be a sign of poor relational database design, e.g., you have numbered fields that should have been separated into rows of a different table.