How to increase 1 the value of a null field?

Question

Here is my query:

UPDATE users u SET events = events + 1 WHERE id u.id = new.user_id;

The default value of event column is NULL. So my query won't affect (increase). How can I handle that?

Answer 1

try this way

Using IFNULL()

UPDATE users u SET events = IFNULL(events, 0) + 1 WHERE id u.id = new.user_id;

Answer 2

Use COALESCE() function regard a NULL as a 0

UPDATE users u SET events = COALESCE(events, 0) + 1 WHERE u.id = new.user_id;