Question

Consider the following query:

SELECT operation, [...] FROM tableName

The operation field will retrieve an integer from 1 to 4. What I would like to do is assign a string value to a variable in the SQL query, based on the integer value of operation.

If it were up to me, I would have a corresponding table that contained the name of each operation, in which case a JOIN would pick up the operation string. Unfortunately, I do not control the database.

I don’t know if this is even something SQL can do, and I could certainly iterate over the returned data using PHP to perform this task instead, but it makes sense to do it all in one hit if possible.

Answer 1

Try something kile this:

SELECT 
  CASE 
     operation
  WHEN 1 THEN 'OP1'
  WHEN 2 THEN 'OP2'
  WHEN 3 THEN 'OP3'
  WHEN 4 THEN 'OP4'
  ELSE
     'Unknown OP'
  END OperationName
  , 
[...] FROM tableName