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.

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

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