Question

I have a query I can’t seem to get it to show ‘no project’ when there is no matching project id:

(select (case when prj.Proj_ID is null or prj.Proj_ID =  '' 
    then 'No Project' 
    ELSE prj.Proj_ID + ', ' + prj.[DESC] 
    END) 
from prj 
where prj.Proj_ID = other.Proj_ID)  as 'Project Description'

Any idea?

Answer 1

You also should check whether the project description is null, otherwise you might get back null when you concatenate prj.Proj_ID + ', ' with it:

SELECT CASE
         WHEN prj.Proj_ID IS NULL
               OR prj.Proj_ID = '' THEN 'No Project'
         ELSE prj.Proj_ID + COALESCE(', ' + prj.[DESC], '')
       END AS 'Project Description'
FROM   prj
       LEFT OUTER JOIN other
         ON prj.Proj_ID = other.Proj_ID 

(I’ve also done it so if the description is null, it won’t display the comma either)