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SQL Server - CASE Statement



Like the IF statement, The SQL Server (Transact-SQL) CASE statement checks conditions and returns a value. It starts with checking the first condition and keep on checking conditions until it finds the condition true (like an IF-THEN-ELSE statement). Once the condition is found to be true, it stops checking the further conditions and returns the value. If no condition is found to be true, then it returns the value in the ELSE clause. If the ELSE clause is not defined, it returns NULL.

Syntax

The syntax for using CASE statement in SQL Server (Transact-SQL) is given below:

CASE  
   WHEN Condition1 THEN Value1
   WHEN Condition2 THEN Value2
   WHEN Condition3 THEN Value3
   ... 
   ELSE Value
END

Return Value

The CASE statement returns any datatype such as a string, numeric, date, etc. Note that all results must be the same datatype in the CASE statement. If no condition is found to be true, then the CASE statement will return the value in the ELSE clause. If the ELSE clause is omitted and no condition is found to be true, then the CASE statement will return NULL.

Example:

Consider a database table called Employee with the following records:

EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
1JohnLondon253000
2MarryNew York242750
3JoParis272800
4KimAmsterdam303100
5RameshNew Delhi283000
6HuangBeijing282800

  • To get the Name and Salary data of the employees categorized by salary (CASE statement is used to define category), the following statement can be used:

    SELECT Name, City, Salary, 
    CASE
      WHEN Salary < 2800 THEN 'Salary is less than 2800.'
      WHEN Salary > 2800 THEN 'Salary is greater than 2800.'
      WHEN Salary = 2800 THEN 'Salary is 2800.'
      ELSE 'Salary Data missing.'
    END AS SalaryinCategory 
    FROM Employee;
    

    This will produce the result as shown below:

    NameCitySalarySalaryinCategory
    JohnLondon3000Salary is greater than 2800.
    MarryNew York2750Salary is less than 2800.
    JoParis2800Salary is 2800.
    KimAmsterdam3100Salary is greater than 2800.
    RameshNew Delhi3000Salary is greater than 2800.
    HuangBeijing2800Salary is 2800.
  • Consider the example below where the CASE statement is used to order by result based on given condition.

    SELECT * FROM Employee 
    ORDER BY
    (CASE
      WHEN Age <= 27 THEN Age
      ELSE Salary
    END);
    

    This result of the following code will be:

    EmpIDNameCityAgeSalary
    2MarryNew York242750
    1JohnLondon253000
    3JoParis272800
    6HuangBeijing282800
    5RameshNew Delhi283000
    4KimAmsterdam303100