assumeNotNull and friends

assumeNotNull result is implementation specific:

WITH CAST(NULL, 'Nullable(UInt8)') AS column
SELECT
    column,
    assumeNotNull(column + 999) AS x;

┌─column─┬─x─┐
   null  0 
└────────┴───┘

WITH CAST(NULL, 'Nullable(UInt8)') AS column
SELECT
    column,
    assumeNotNull(materialize(column) + 999) AS x;

┌─column─┬───x─┐
   null  999 
└────────┴─────┘

CREATE TABLE test_null
(
    `key` UInt32,
    `value` Nullable(String)
)
ENGINE = MergeTree
ORDER BY key;

INSERT INTO test_null SELECT
    number,
    concat('value ', toString(number))
FROM numbers(4);

SELECT *
FROM test_null;

┌─key─┬─value───┐
   0  value 0 
   1  value 1 
   2  value 2 
   3  value 3 
└─────┴─────────┘

ALTER TABLE test_null
    UPDATE value = NULL WHERE key = 3;

SELECT *
FROM test_null;

┌─key─┬─value───┐
   0  value 0 
   1  value 1 
   2  value 2 
   3  null    
└─────┴─────────┘

SELECT
    key,
    assumeNotNull(value)
FROM test_null;

┌─key─┬─assumeNotNull(value)─┐
   0  value 0              
   1  value 1              
   2  value 2              
   3  value 3              
└─────┴──────────────────────┘

WITH CAST(NULL, 'Nullable(Enum8(\'a\' = 1, \'b\' = 0))') AS test
SELECT assumeNotNull(test)

┌─assumeNotNull(test)─┐
 b                   
└─────────────────────┘

WITH CAST(NULL, 'Nullable(Enum8(\'a\' = 1))') AS test
SELECT assumeNotNull(test)

Error on processing query 'with CAST(null, 'Nullable(Enum8(\'a\' = 1))') as test
select assumeNotNull(test); ;':
Code: 36, e.displayText() = DB::Exception: Unexpected value 0 in enum, Stack trace (when copying this message, always include the lines below):

If it’s possible to have Null values, it’s better to use ifNull function instead.

SELECT count()
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000)
WHERE NOT ignore(ifNull(toNullable(number), 0))

┌────count()─┐
 1000000000 
└────────────┘

1 rows in set. Elapsed: 0.705 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (1.42 billion rows/s., 11.35 GB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000)
WHERE NOT ignore(coalesce(toNullable(number), 0))

┌────count()─┐
 1000000000 
└────────────┘

1 rows in set. Elapsed: 2.383 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (419.56 million rows/s., 3.36 GB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000)
WHERE NOT ignore(assumeNotNull(toNullable(number)))

┌────count()─┐
 1000000000 
└────────────┘

1 rows in set. Elapsed: 0.051 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (19.62 billion rows/s., 156.98 GB/s.)

SELECT count()
FROM numbers_mt(1000000000)
WHERE NOT ignore(toNullable(number))

┌────count()─┐
 1000000000 
└────────────┘

1 rows in set. Elapsed: 0.050 sec. Processed 1.00 billion rows, 8.00 GB (20.19 billion rows/s., 161.56 GB/s.)