Question

I have a report with 4 parameters. I would like to make them not required. The problem is the conventional approach to do this, creates 16 OR/AND statements. If I were to have 10 not required parameters the SOL statement would be out of control. This works but is there an easier way?

Here is what I have:

MAIN DATA SET:

select * 
from table 
where 
     table.one = @param1 OR @param1 IS NOT NULL 
     AND.....(etc.etc..)

@param1, @param2,@param3,@param4: (default value null/blank)

Select some_column from any_table UNION SELECT '' as Nothing

Answer 1

The way I’ve always done it is

WHERE 
  col1 = isnull(@col1, col1) 
  and col2 = isnull(@col2, col2)
  ...etc

So pretty much what you have, with some semantic corrections.