Question

How can I format a Mailing Address so that I always push all non-null rows to the top? That is, I want to convert an address from the structure below to a mailing address.

Here is the structure:

[Line1] [varchar](50) NULL, [Line2] [varchar](50) NULL, [Line3] [varchar](50) NULL, [City] [varchar](50) NULL, [State] [varchar] (2) NULL, [PostalCode] [varchar](50) NULL, 

Here is some sample data:

Line1= Line2=123 Some Address Line3= City=Royal Oak State=MI ZIP=45673-2312 

Here is what the result should look like (4 distinct or separate fields should be returned):

MailAddress1=123 Some Address MailAddress2=ROYAL OAK MI 45673-2312 MailAddress3= MailAddress4= 

I am using SQL Server 2005.

Someone wrote this logic in our company and it just seemed to complex (Note: this is not the whole SELECT statement):

,CASE    WHEN eai.Line1 IS NULL OR eai.Line1 = '' THEN      CASE        WHEN eai.Line2 IS NULL OR eai.Line2 = '' THEN          CASE            WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')           ELSE eai.Line3           END       ELSE eai.Line2       END   ELSE eai.Line1   END ,CASE    WHEN eai.Line1 IS NULL OR eai.Line1 = '' THEN     CASE        WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')       ELSE eai.Line3       END   ELSE      CASE        WHEN eai.Line2 IS NULL OR eai.Line2 = '' THEN          CASE            WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')           ELSE eai.Line3           END       ELSE eai.Line2       END   END ,CASE   WHEN eai.Line1 IS NULL OR eai.Line1 = '' THEN     CASE        WHEN eai.Line2 IS NULL OR eai.Line2 = '' THEN NULL       ELSE         CASE            WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN NULL           ELSE ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')           END       END    ELSE     CASE        WHEN eai.Line2 IS NULL OR eai.Line2 = '' THEN          CASE            WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN NULL           ELSE ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')           END       ELSE            CASE              WHEN eai.Line3 IS NULL OR eai.Line3 = '' THEN ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(eai.PostalCode)),'')             ELSE eai.Line3             END       END   END ,CASE WHEN eai.Line2 IS NOT NULL AND eai.Line2 <> '' AND eai.Line3 IS NOT NULL AND eai.Line3 <> '' THEN eai.City + ' ' + eai.RegionCode + '  ' + eai.PostalCode ELSE NULL END 

Answer 1

The way to do this is with an UNPIVOT. Here is the solution:

With AddrTable as ( Select AddrFld, MailAddr From ( Select Cast(ISNULL([Line1], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A1],         Cast(ISNULL([Line2], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A2],         Cast(ISNULL([Line3], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A3],         Cast(ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(PostalCode)),'') as Varchar(102)) as A4 From TableName Where UniqueID=@UniqueID) p Unpivot (MailAddr For AddrFld in ([A1], [A2], [A3], [A4])) as unpvt) Select Row_Number() over (Order by (Case Len(MailAddr) When 0 then 1 else 0 end), AddrFld) as RN,  MailAddr From AddrTable  Order By RN 

Here’s the output:

Address1 Westby WI  55555 -empty line- -empty line- 

Note that I had to use ‘Varchar(102)’ as the field length (unpivot requires that all fields be the same) because your City/Region/Postal can have up to 102 chars in total. Also, note that ‘@UniqueID’ is the identifier for the record whose address you need. This returns four and always four rows containing the data you need for your address.

UPDATE: If you need to return this as a set of four columns rather than four rows, then just plop it into a view and then query the view with a Pivot. I’ve included the view here for completeness as I had to change the above just a bit when creating the view so the uniqueID field was included and no sort was done (the sort is now done in the query):

Create View AddressRows AS  With AddrTable as (  Select UniqueID, AddrFld, MailAddr From (  Select UniqueID,         Cast(ISNULL([Line1], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A1],         Cast(ISNULL([Line2], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A2],         Cast(ISNULL([Line3], '') as Varchar(102)) as [A3],         Cast(ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(City)),'') + ' ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(RegionCode)),'') + '  ' + ISNULL(LTRIM(RTRIM(PostalCode)),'') as Varchar(102)) as A4  From TableName Where UniqueID=@UniqueID) p  Unpivot (MailAddr For AddrFld in ([A1], [A2], [A3], [A4])) as unpvt)  Select UniqueID,         Row_Number() over (Order by (Case Len(MailAddr) When 0 then 1 else 0 end), AddrFld) as RN,         MailAddr From AddrTable  

And then, when you want to pull your matching ‘row’ out, Pivot it back using this SQL (notice that I am querying again using UniqueID):

Select [Addr1], [Addr2], [Addr3], [Addr4] From ( Select Top 4 'Addr' + Cast(Row_Number() over (Order by RN) as Varchar(12)) as AddrCol,  -- 'Top 4' needed so we can sneak the 'Order By' in  MailAddr  From AddressRows Where UniqueID=@UniqueID ) p PIVOT (Max([MailAddr]) for AddrCol in ([Addr1], [Addr2], [Addr3], [Addr4]) ) as pvt 

This returns:

Addr1            Addr2                Addr3           Addr4 --------------   ------------------   -------------   ------------------  Address1         Westby WI  54667