Question

I have a SQL Statement where i need to display the value from another table if a joining record exists. To attempt this, I’m using ISNULL. As a demonstration, here is a sample query:

SELECT
 FirstName,
 LastName,
 ISNULL(select top 1 birthdate from BirthRecords where [SSN]=p.SSN, false) as HasRecord
FROM
 Person p

Please note, this is a small snippet. I know there is a better way to do this specific query. However, I cannot do an outer join in my FROM clause. Because of this, I’m trying to do an inline statement. I thought ISNULL was the correct approach. Can someone please explain how I should do this?

Thank you,

Answer 1

Try this and see if it works for ya.

SELECT
 FirstName,
 LastName,
 CASE when R.BirthDate IS NULL THEN FALSE
 ELSE TRUE
END  as HasRecord
FROM
 Person p
left join BirthRecords R on p.SSN = R.SSN