Conditional Statements in SQL with CASE

• If you have ever wondered how to IF like conditional statements in SQL, CASE is your answer.
• It’s supported in all versions of SQL Server
• CASE can be added to both the SELECT portion of a SELECT statement as well as the ORDER BY portion
• CASE statements can be used inside other CASE statements

With CASE you can easily group data into various ranges, you can beautify the results of a SQL query, and can allow for dynamic sorting of the query’s results. CASE statements can also be used to give subtitles to ROLLUP and CUBE queries, and can be used in computed columns to boot.

1SELECT 
2  CASE <variable> 
3    WHEN <value> THEN <returnvalue>
4    WHEN <othervalue> THEN <returnthis>
5  ELSE <returndefaultcase>
6  END AS <newcolumnname>
7FROM <table>

• AS <newcolumnname> after the END names the resulting column. Optional.

Links

• The Power of SQL CASE Statements
• StackOverflow: How do I perform an IF…THEN in an SQL SELECT?