How let Empty (NULL) cells in Matrix Report to show a 0 value

Question

I am working on a Matrix report in Oracle 9i environment. The report involves lots of grouping and calculations. Everything works fine, except for the Empty (NULL) cells. If a group did not get a concrete
Returned value (NULL), the cell would be empty. The data layout is as following:
District_Name
Total      Failed      %Failed
10 5 %50
For some District, all 3 cells are empty, (with NULL values returned, I guess). As a result, all 3 cell for that District show nothing. End users required all cells with a meaningful value (e.g. 0). At same time they want all the value in a grid style (outlined). With null values, all 3 cell merged into one empty "big" cell".
Any friends can help?
I would like to express my appreciation here.
AChen

Answer 1

Without seeing your query, sounds like you either need:
a) an outer join
b) an NVL function
If you are pulling data from multiple tables, and you are doing direct joins, and data from one table is not present in another, an outer join would get the other data.
You should also use NVL if you need a 0. If a field is not populated, but you want to default it to zero, use the NVL function.
If all else fails, you could make the fields formula fields. In the formula you could put this pseudocode:
IF :cf_cell1 is null
then return 0;
else return :cf_cell1;
end if;Just an idea - if none of those suffice, post your query and maybe we can help.
Good luck!