Question

Here is a simplication of the problem: I have a select that looks like this:

Select ID, Assignee, WorkStream from assignees;

And a snap shot of the data returned looked like this

1|Joe Soap|Internal

2|Mrs Balls|External

What I would like to do is have the select not display the Assignee name if the worksteam is internal. Instead to display the Workstream.

So for example the outcome I want to achieve would be this:

1|Internal|Internal

2|Mrs Balls|External

I hope this makes sense? Basically a conditional select that can detect if a certain column contains a certain value, then replace another columns value with [whatever].

EDIT I want to achieve something like this:

Select ID, if (workstream='internal' select Workstream as Assignee - else - select Assignee as Assigneee), WorkStream from assignees;

Answer 1

You didn’t mention your DBMS but a searched CASE statement works in all major DBMS’s I know off.

SELECT  ID
        , CASE WHEN WorkStream = 'Internal'
               THEN WorkStream
               ELSE Assignee
          END AS Assignee
        , Workstream
FROM    assignees

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Reference: MSDN

CASE

Evaluates a list of conditions and returns one of multiple possible
result expressions.