sql - Determine Oracle null == null

Question

I wish to search a database table on a nullable column. Sometimes the value I'm search for is itself NULL. Since Null is equal to nothing, even NULL, saying

where MYCOLUMN=SEARCHVALUE 

will fail. Right now I have to resort to

where ((MYCOLUMN=SEARCHVALUE) OR (MYCOLUMN is NULL and SEARCHVALUE is NULL))

Is there a simpler way of saying that?

(I'm using Oracle if that matters)

Answer 1

You can do the IsNull or NVL stuff, but it's just going to make the engine do more work. You'll be calling functions to do column conversions which then have to have the results compared.

Use what you have

where ((MYCOLUMN=SEARCHVALUE) OR (MYCOLUMN is NULL and SEARCHVALUE is NULL))