Question

I have a stored proc which unions some data and returns back. At max that SP will return me 3 rows meeting the where condition.

Is there a way i can force the SP to return the blank row if there is no data present which matches the condition?

This is how my SP looks like:

SELECT Top 1 Col1, 'FirstResult' FROM Table T1
       where SomeColumn='whatever'

UNION ALL

SELECT Top 1 Col2, 'SecondResult' FROM Table T1
       where SomeColumn='whatever'

UNION ALL

SELECT Top 1 Col3, 'ThirdResult' FROM Table T1
       where SomeColumn='whatever'

I want to always return me 3 rows regardless even if the condition doesnt match. Of course data will be empty or NULL in the resultset.

Answer 1

You can go here to demonstrate that the query in this answer works with no rows: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/51d1c/3

With 1 row in YourTable: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/ad1e8/1

Here is a procedure that should return what you are looking for:

CREATE PROCEDURE pExample_Get3ForcedRows
    @FirstMatch VARCHAR(50)
    ,@SecondMatch VARCHAR(50)
    ,@ThirdMatch VARCHAR(50)
AS
BEGIN

DECLARE @ForceTable TABLE
(
    MatchColumn VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
)

INSERT @ForceTable (MatchColumn) VALUES (@FirstMatch),(@SecondMatch),(@ThirdMatch)

SELECT
    T.Col1
    , T.ResultColumn
FROM @ForceTable F
LEFT JOIN YourTable T
    ON T.SomeColumn = F.MatchColumn

END
GO