Update Empty String Values of a Column in Table in MySQL

MySQL – Update Empty String Values of a Column in Table

To update empty string values of a column in a table in MySQL, use SQL UPDATE statement with WHERE clause and the condition being the column empty.

The following is a simple syntax of UPDATE statement with WHERE clause to update a column value if its value is an empty string.

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UPDATE table_name SET column_name = new_value WHERE column_name = '' ;

where

table_name is the table name in which we would like to update.
column_name is the name of column whose value has to be checked if it is empty string, and updated.
new_value will be assigned to the specified column for all rows in table.

In the following example, we will consider a table students and update the column name to Not Avaiable if name is empty.

“students” table before UPDATE

name	rollno
Arjun	14
Manish	15
Vina	16
	17
	18

SQL Query

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UPDATE students SET name = 'Not Available' WHERE name = '';

Response

2 row(s) affected Rows matched: 2  Changed: 2  Warnings: 0

“students” table after UPDATE

name			rollno
Arjun			14
Manish			15
Vina			16
Not Available	17
Not Available	18