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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-13T00:00:45+00:00

I’m using CASE to clean up some state abbreviations, in a table, but it’s

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I’m using CASE to clean up some state abbreviations, in a table, but it’s working contrary to the logic. I selected the length alone to show that the length is being calculated correctly, so I think it’s the CASE logic that’s off

When I query…

SELECT billing_state,
       length(billing_state),
       CASE billing_state
         WHEN length(billing_state) > 2 THEN (select state_abbr from lkup_states where upper(state_name) = billing_state)
         WHEN length(billing_state) = 2 THEN upper(billing_state)
         ELSE 'UNKNOWN'
       END as billing_state_fixed           
  FROM accounts
+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
| billing_state | length(billing_state) | billing_state_fixed |
+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
| GA            |                     2 | NULL                |
| Alabama       |                     7 | ALABAMA             |
| MS            |                     2 | NULL                |
| FL            |                     2 | NULL                |
| NULL          |                  NULL | UNKNOWN             |
+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+

However, when I enter this bizarro logic, it works. 

SELECT billing_state,
       length(billing_state),
       CASE billing_state
         WHEN length(billing_state) = 2 THEN (select state_abbr from lkup_states where upper(state_name) = billing_state)
         WHEN length(billing_state) <> 2 THEN upper(billing_state)
         ELSE 'UNKNOWN'
       END as billing_state_fixed           
  FROM accounts

+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
| billing_state | length(billing_state) | billing_state_fixed |
+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+
| GA            |                     2 | GA                  |
| Alabama       |                     7 | AL                  |
| MS            |                     2 | MS                  |
| FL            |                     2 | FL                  |
| NULL          |                  NULL | UNKNOWN             |
+---------------+-----------------------+---------------------+

Can anyone take a swing at this one?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Per the docs, your syntax isn’t quite correct.

    You’ve muddle CASE value WHEN compare_value and CASE WHEN expression.

    What you probably want is:

    SELECT billing_state,
       length(billing_state),
       CASE
         WHEN length(billing_state) > 2 THEN (select state_abbr from lkup_states where upper(state_name) = billing_state)
         WHEN length(billing_state) = 2 THEN upper(billing_state)
         ELSE 'UNKNOWN'
       END as billing_state_fixed           
  FROM accounts
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