SQL Server - Include NULL using UNPIVOT

I ran into the same problem. Using CROSS APPLY (SQL Server 2005 and later) instead of Unpivot solved the problem. I found the solution based on this article An Alternative (Better?) Method to UNPIVOT and I made the following example to demonstrate that CROSS APPLY will NOT Ignore NULLs like Unpivot.

create table #Orders (OrderDate datetime, product nvarchar(100), ItemsCount float, GrossAmount float, employee nvarchar(100))

 insert into #Orders
 select getutcdate(),'Windows',10,10.32,'Me'
 union 
 select getutcdate(),'Office',31,21.23,'you'
 union 
 select getutcdate(),'Office',31,55.45,'me'
 union  
 select getutcdate(),'Windows',10,null,'You'

SELECT OrderDate, product,employee,Measure,MeasureType
 from #Orders orders
 CROSS APPLY (
    VALUES ('ItemsCount',ItemsCount),('GrossAmount',GrossAmount)
    ) 
    x(MeasureType, Measure) 


SELECT OrderDate, product,employee,Measure,MeasureType
from #Orders orders
UNPIVOT
   (Measure FOR MeasureType IN 
      (ItemsCount,GrossAmount)
)AS unpvt;


 drop table #Orders

or, in SQLServer 2008 in shorter way:

...
cross join 
(values('col1'), ('col2'), ('col3'), ('col4')) column_names(column_name)

It's a real pain. You have to switch them out before the UNPIVOT, because there is no row produced for ISNULL() to operate on - code generation is your friend here.

I have the problem on PIVOT as well. Missing rows turn into NULL, which you have to wrap in ISNULL() all the way across the row if missing values are the same as 0.0 for example.

To preserve NULLs, use CROSS JOIN ... CASE:

select a.ID, b.column_name
, column_value = 
    case b.column_name
      when 'col1' then a.col1
      when 'col2' then a.col2
      when 'col3' then a.col3
      when 'col4' then a.col4
    end
from (
  select ID, col1, col2, col3, col4 
  from table1
  ) a
cross join (
  select 'col1' union all
  select 'col2' union all
  select 'col3' union all
  select 'col4'
  ) b (column_name)

Instead of:

select ID, column_name, column_value
From (
  select ID, col1, col2, col3, col4
  from table1
  ) a
unpivot (
  column_value FOR column_name IN (
    col1, col2, col3, col4)
  ) b

A text editor with column mode makes such queries easier to write. UltraEdit has it, so does Emacs. In Emacs it's called rectangular edit.

You might need to script it for 100 columns.