Question

I have a MySQL table that keeps details about people, for example:

• Name
• Address
• WorkEmail
• HomeEmail
• Preferred Email (‘WorkEmail’ or ‘HomeEmail’)

I want to select their preferred email only. Is there a neat way to do this using SQL? or will I just need to do this after I pull out the data?

Answer 1

A simple case statement should do the trick:

SELECT 
    Name,
    CASE WHEN PreferredEmail = 'WorkEmail' THEN WorkEmail ELSE HomeEmail END AS Email
FROM
    MyTable