NULL in outer joins?

Hi there!

I have a quick question here that has been puzzling me for sometime.

Say, we obtained nulls in outer joins...how do we replace the nulls in say, ORACLE Reports with 0???

Example,
To select monthly salary for all departments, even those departments with no employees:

select dept.deptno, dname, SUM(sal) "Monthly Salary" from emp, dept
where emp.deptno(+) = dept.deptno
group by dept.deptno, dname
order by dept.deptno

and you get:

DEPTNO		DNAME		MONTHLY SALARY


-----------	------------	--------------


10		ACCOUNTING	8750
20		RESEARCH	10875
30		OPERATIONS		<----Blank or NULL because no emp.

How can I replace that blank or null with 0 in ORACLE REPORTS?

I have tried a format trigger htat says, IF SUM(sal) IS NULL THEN... doesn't work. So....any ideas???

Platform: ORACLE REPORTS 2.0.14

Thanks in advance!!!

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Siong H. Chan
Jason Sound Industries Ltd. Received on Mon May 15 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST