Question

Having trouble creating a scalar function inside MS SQL 2005. Any suggestions would be appreciated. The title1_type field should be set according to the case statement. The sku is passed which should determine the type base on the case statement.

create FUNCTION [dbo].[gettitle1_type] (@sku varchar(50))  
RETURNS varchar(50) AS  
BEGIN 
    DECLARE @title1_type varchar(50)
    DECLARE @title1 varchar(50)
    select @title1_type = case @title1
        when @title1 like '%SMALL%' then 'size'
        when @title1 like '%large%' then 'size'
        when @title1  like '%pink%' then 'color'
        when @title1  like '%red%' then 'color'
        when @title1  like '%brunette%' then 'color'
        else ''
    END;
    where sku = @sku

    RETURN isnull(@title1_type,'')

Answer 1

You need to

1. Get rid of the semi colon after END; This is not the end of the statement. Optionally you could put one after where sku = @sku though.
2. Don’t use case @title1, use Case instead. You are mingling the 2 forms of the CASE expression.
3. Add a final END to finish the function definition.
4. Either remove the WHERE or add a FROM
5. (Optional and dependant on 4) It is best practice to put WITH SCHEMABINDING on scalar UDFs that do not do data access. This can help performance in some cases.

Giving the below

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[gettitle1_type] (@sku VARCHAR(50))  
RETURNS VARCHAR(50) 
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS  
BEGIN 
    DECLARE @title1_type VARCHAR(50)
    DECLARE @title1 VARCHAR(50) /*This is never assigned to ?!*/

    SELECT @title1_type = CASE 
        WHEN @title1 LIKE '%SMALL%' THEN 'size'
        WHEN @title1 LIKE '%large%' THEN 'size'
        WHEN @title1  LIKE '%pink%' THEN 'color'
        WHEN @title1  LIKE '%red%' THEN 'color'
        WHEN @title1  LIKE '%brunette%' THEN 'color'
        ELSE ''
    END
    /*
    FROM xyz
    WHERE sku = @sku;*/

    RETURN ISNULL(@title1_type,'')
END