Question

I need to write a a query that gets a set of information from a table, but if there is no information for that specific client, then use the default set. I was wondering if there is a way to avoid query duplication in an if(exists()) statement.

For example:

IF( EXISTS( SELECT * FROM UserTable WHERE Name = @UserName))
BEGIN
    SELECT * FROM UserTable WHERE Name = @UserName))
END
ELSE
BEGIN
    SELECT * FROM UserTable WHERE Name = 'Jon Skeet'))
END

The first two selects (exists and the true part of the if) are the exact same. I want to avoid running the same query twice if the statement is true. I know the exists stops once the first true condition is met but that is still O(n) worst case.

Another option I know of, is put the information in a temp table and check if information is there, if not return the default information.

Both ways would work but what is the best way to do it? Are there other ways to do this? Is there some way to do this in the WHERE clause since that’s the only thing that is different?

Edit: Fixed example to return a row not just a single item. So the answers of dumping the select to a single variable would be equal to a temp table I assume. Also, to not anger Jon Skeet, spelled his name right

Answer 1

You could do this:

SELECT TOP 1
     UserID
FROM
     UserTable
WHERE
     Name IN (@UserName, 'John Skeet')
ORDER BY
     CASE WHEN Name = 'John Skeet' THEN 2 ELSE 1 END

(or use LIMIT or whatever the method is for your RDBMS)

Or you could do this:

DECLARE @UserID INT

SELECT
     @UserID = UserID
FROM
     UserTable
WHERE
     Name = @UserName

IF (@UserID IS NULL)
     SELECT
          @UserID = UserID
     FROM
          UserTable
     WHERE
          Name = 'John Skeet'

SELECT @UserID AS UserID

Or this:

SELECT
     COALESCE(T2.UserID, T1.UserID)
FROM
     UserTable T1
LEFT OUTER JOIN UserTable T2 ON
     T2.Name = @UserName
WHERE
     T1.Name = 'John Skeet'

Or this:

SELECT
     UserID
FROM
     UserTable
WHERE
     Name = @UserName

IF (@@ROWCOUNT = 0)  -- MS SQL Server specific, your RDBMS method will vary
     SELECT
          UserID
     FROM
          UserTable
     WHERE
          Name = 'John Skeet'