Question

I want to create a SQL Select to do a unit test in MS SQL Server 2005. The basic idea is this:

select 'Test Name', foo = 'Result' from bar where baz = (some criteria) 

The idea being that, if the value of the ‘foo’ column is ‘Result’, then I’d get a value of true/1; if it isn’t, I’d get false/0.

Unfortunately, T-SQL doesn’t like the expression; it chokes on the equals sign.

Is there some way of evaluating an expression in the SQL select list and getting a returnable result? (Or some other way of achieving the unit testing that I want?)

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EDIT: 3 great, answers, all built around CASE. I’ll accept feihtthief’s as he’s got the least rep and thus needs it the most. 🙂 Thanks to everyone.

Answer 1

Use the case construct:

select 'Test Name',      case when foo = 'Result' then 1 else 0 end      from bar where baz = (some criteria) 

Also see the MSDN Transact-SQL CASE documentation.