<p>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</p>

<pre><code>where MYCOLUMN=SEARCHVALUE 
</code></pre>

<p>will fail.  Right now I have to resort to</p>

<pre><code>where ((MYCOLUMN=SEARCHVALUE) OR (MYCOLUMN is NULL and SEARCHVALUE is NULL))
</code></pre>

<p>Is there a simpler way of saying that?</p>

<p>(I'm using Oracle if that matters)</p>

Try
```
```
WHERE NVL(mycolumn,'NULL') = NVL(searchvalue,'NULL')
```
```