Null Sorts as the Lowest Value in a Collation - Teradata Vantage - Analytics Database

Database Design

Deployment
VantageCloud
VantageCore
Edition
VMware
Enterprise
IntelliFlex
Product
Analytics Database
Teradata Vantage
Release Number
17.20
Published
June 2022
ft:locale
en-US
ft:lastEdition
2025-11-21
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dita:id
zqc1472244571611
lifecycle
lifecycle
Product Category
Teradata Vantageā„¢

When rows are sorted using an ORDER BY clause, nulls sort as the lowest value.

If any row has a null in the column being grouped, then all rows having a null are placed into one group. In other words, though it is syntactically incorrect to formulate the predicate NULL = NULL in a DML request because nulls have no value and therefore cannot be equated, it is also true that when SQL sorts nulls, the implicit result is that NULL = NULL.