COALESCE returns the first non-null expr in the expression list. At least one expr must not be the literal NULL. If all occurrences of expr evaluate to null, then the function returns null.
Oracle Database uses short-circuit evaluation. That is, the database evaluates each expr value and determines whether it is NULL, rather than evaluating all of the expr values before determining whether any of them is NULL.
If all occurrences of expr are numeric datatype or any nonnumeric datatype that can be implicitly converted to a numeric datatype, then Oracle Database determines the argument with the highest numeric precedence, implicitly converts the remaining arguments to that datatype, and returns that datatype.