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Workaround for 'Divide by zero error encountered'

Today I just want to write a sample explaining the workaround for 'Divide by zero error encountered.' error in SQL Server.

Sample Table Structure for demo purpose

Create Table dbo.TestDivideByZero
(
WebSite varchar(50),
NumOfHits int,
Income int
)
Go


Insert dummy records

Insert into dbo.TestDivideByZero values ('a.com', 100, 20)
Insert into dbo.TestDivideByZero values ('b.com', 10, 0)
Insert into dbo.TestDivideByZero values ('c.com', 300, 25)

Insert into dbo.TestDivideByZero values ('d.com', 1300, 225)
Go


Query to produce 'Divide by zero error encountered.' error

Select WebSite, NumOfHits / Income from dbo.TestDivideByZero
Go

This would throw the below error:

Msg 8134, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Divide by zero error encountered.

Workaround

Make use of NULLIF function. Like, if the value is 0 then return NULL. For better understanding execute the below query and see it for yourself.

Select WebSite, NumOfHits / NullIf(Income,0) as ColumnName from dbo.TestDivideByZero
Go


Hope this helps!

Comments

Story Teller said…
hiii... a google search on verizon data services lead me to your blog site.. anyways... quite a informative blog for programmers i guess... but it's not my cup of tea ;)
Anonymous said…
thanks man. it was very helpfull.
Anonymous said…
Excellent tip -been suffering with odbc to excel - all sorted
thanks again

found via Google search
Anonymous said…
Thanks - this helped with a division where the divisor was never zero (!) - not sure why, regardless the NULLIF fixed it.
Gary said…
Thanks very much, that helped a lot!
Anonymous said…
thank you, thank you, thank you :)
Anonymous said…
Nice Trick - Thanks

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