How to avoid to check if a column value is NULL?

Question

Hi, I'm a newbee in Oracle.
I have a procedure like this:
create or replace
PROCEDURE get_employee
     v_first_name IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL ,
     v_middle_name IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL ,
     v_last_name IN VARCHAR2 DEFAULT NULL ,
To select rows with matching multiple column values, I can simply do this:
SELECT *
FROM employee
WHERE first_name = v_first_name
AND middle_name = v_middle_name
AND last_name = v_last_name
The problem is v_middle_name can be NULL. This means,
I need check if v_middle_name is NULL, and if it is, I need use "IS NULL" instead, like this:
SELECT *
FROM employee
WHERE first_name = v_first_name
AND middle_name IS NULL
AND last_name = v_last_name
It seems very cumbersome to do a check for each column that can be null.
Is there a way that I do not need to do a check for every column?
or is it better to avoid having NULL values in those columns (and replace them with, say a space) ?
Thanks in advance.
Simon

Answer 1

Normally, you would do something like
SELECT *
  FROM employee
WHERE first_name = NVL( v_first_name, first_name )
   AND middle_name = NVL(v_middle_name, middle_name )
   AND last_name = NVL(v_last_name, last_name )Of course, if you can ensure that NULL data is not allowed (without creating phony non-NULL data), that is a good thing. In most systems, for example, it is probably reasonable to require a non-NULL first and last name. But you almost certainly cannot require a middle name.
Justin