Question

I have been struggling for quite some time to get this query going.

In short my query searches by fileno and/or searchfield

DECLARE @pSearchFor AS NVARCHAR(100);

— I am here testing with null value, ‘ ‘ , or seperate words
SET @pSearchFor = null — ‘”marsa” and “mosta”‘;

 IF ISNULL(@pSearchFor,'') = '' SET @pSearchFor = '""' ;

declare @fileNo nvarchar(50) = 'e/e'

select top 1000 r.FileId, r.FileNo,  fs.SearchField, @pSearchFor

from regfile as r
left outer join FileSearchFields as fs on r.FileId = fs.FileID
where r.FileNo like 
CASE 
 WHEN  Len(@fileno) > 1 THEN '%'+@fileNo+'%'
 ELSE r.FileNo
END

 AND 
     1 = 
     CASE WHEN ISNULL(@pSearchFor, '') = '' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
       or CONTAINS(fs.SearchField, @pSearchFor)

---

I am getting nothing returned if @pSearchFor is null otherwise works great.

I need to return all instances if a null

One possible solution might be to call 2 seperate sps or use if /else but probably exists a better method.

I really do appreciate your help!

Answer 1

I have solved the problem. Maybe this may be of some help to others!
This is a snippet of my stored procedure.

 @fileNo nvarchar(50) = null ,
 @fields nvarchar(100) = '""',`enter code here`
 @datefrom date = null,
 @dateto date  = null,
...
AS`enter code here`
BEGIN

 if (@fields = null or LEN(@fields) < 1 ) set @fields = '""'

select top 1000 r.*,
(CASE 
        WHEN fs.SearchField IS NULL THEN CONVERT(NVarChar(1),'')
        ELSE CONVERT(NVarChar(MAX),fs.SearchField)
     END) AS [Search]  
from regfile as r
left outer join FileSearchFields as fs on r.FileId = fs.FileID
where r.FileNo like 
CASE 
 WHEN  Len(@fileno) > 1 THEN '%'+@fileNo+'%'
 ELSE r.FileNo
 END
 and
  r.Date between 
CASE 
 WHEN  @datefrom != '' THEN @datefrom
 ELSE '1900-1-1'
 END

 and 
CASE 
 WHEN  @dateto != '' THEN @dateto
 ELSE '9999-1-1'
 END
 and 
 ((LEN(@fields) > 2 and contains(fs.SearchField,@fields))or (LEN(@fields) <= 2)) 
 --NB: <= 2 as we have added the "" characters in @fields!

end