SQL Add - How to Use Addition in SQL Server - SQL Training Online

The SQL Add (+), or the Addition operator is used to add to numbers and days to a date. In this video, you will see how to use it inside of SQL Server Management Studio.

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I first want to take a look at the Employee table in the SQL Training Online Simple Database.

select * from employee

In particular, I want to look at the Salary and Commission columns.
![SQL Add (+), SQL Addition](../../assets/blog/2012/10/image_thumb.png)

We can add those two columns together by using the plus sign (+), or addition operator in SQL:

select salary

,commision ,salary + commision

from employee

But, since there can be nulls in the commission column, we need to handle that with the isnull function:

select salary

,isnull(commision,0) as commision

,salary + isnull(commision,0) as total_compensation

from employee

Next, I want to show you how to add with a datetime.

When you use the SQL Add operator, SQL Server will actually add the number in days.

Here is an example:

select hire_date

,hire_date + 2 as training_date

from employee

This example will add 2 days to the hire_date. MSDN also esplains the SQL Add operator.

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