Question

I have a db that has multiple columns with follow the “name_*” syntax. Basically I wanna use UPDATE in a query so that it updates the first column where the value of it is equal to ”.

I found this so far:

UPDATE table SET
`name_1` = CASE WHEN `name_1` = '' then 'something' else name_1 end,
`name_2` = CASE WHEN `name_2` = '' then 'something' else name_2 end,
`name_3` = CASE WHEN `name_3` = '' then 'something' else name_3 end
WHERE ID = '$id_example'

Now that would be perfect, except it does all of them. I want to select only the first one, where it equals ” and then set the rest to what they were before.

Answer 1

Selecting first your desired column, that would be a good practice.

“SELECT * FROM table WHERE value= first”

Then

YOUR UPDATE QUERY