Question

I’m writing a SQL query in SQL Server in which I need to replace multiple string values with a single string value. For example

Product     Quantity -------     -------- Apple       2 Orange      3 Banana      1 Vegetable   7 Dairy       6 

would become

Product     Quantity -------     -------- Fruit       2 Fruit       3 Fruit       1 Vegetable   7 Dairy       6 

The only way I know how to do this is to use a nested REPLACE in the SELECT clause.

SELECT   REPLACE('Banana', REPLACE('Orange', REPLACE('Banana', Product, 'Fruit'),            'Fruit'), 'Fruit') AS Product FROM   Table 

Is there an easier way?

EDIT: There may be other values in the Product category. See edited example above.

Answer 1

BradC has the best answer so far, but in case you are for some reason unable to create the additional table I wanted to post an adaption of Kibbee’s answer:

SELECT     CASE WHEN Product IN ('Banana', 'Apple', 'Orange') Then 'Fruit'     ELSE Product END  FROM [Table]