Question

I have a strange scenario where I need to return the right-most non-zero column in a table structured as follows:

GL           Q1          Q2          Q3          Q4
1            100         0           0           0
2            100         900         250         0
3            600         100         0           1000

I am expecting the output to be:

GL           Amount
1            100
2            250
3            1000

Is there anyway to accomplish this as a set-based approach without having to resort to a CASE statement or similar solution? Performance is going to be important here.

Answer 1

SELECT
   GL,
   COALESCE( NULLIF(Q4,0), NULLIF(Q3,0), NULLIF(Q2,0), NULLIF(Q1,0) ) as Amount
FROM
   myTable