Question

So FIELD2 can return 2 groups of fields concatenated as a single result depending on the value of Mycondition.

My problem is only when Mycondition = 1

If MyCondition = 1 then I need to concatenate INT_FIELD_ONE + ‘A’ + INT_FIELD_TWO.

The concatenation is not the problem.

The problem is if INT_FIELD_ONE (is null) + ‘A’ + INT_FIELD_TWO (is null), then I have to return nothing.

My Replace command would work if both fields ONE and TWO are null. But if only 1 is NULL and the other is not the “A” gets deleted any way. The A needs to remain if 1 field is not null.

For Example:

NULL + ‘A’ + NULL = Nothing

NULL + ‘A’ + xxxx = Axxxx

xxxx + ‘A’ + NULL = xxxxA

Therefore I need to make a TSQL replace with a length constraint of result > 1

Any Ideas?

SELECT XXX,

CASE --Case Statement to Return Field2
         WHEN MyCondition = 1 THEN
       --Constraint on the Replace Starts Here
       REPLACE(
       Isnull(CAST(INT_FIELD_ONE AS VARCHAR), '') + 'A' +
       Isnull(CAST(INT_FIELD_TWO AS
                   VARCHAR), '')
         ,'A','')  
ELSE
        REPLACE(
        Coalesce(REPLACE(INT_FIELD_THREE, '', '-'), Isnull(INT_FIELD_THREE, '-'), INT_FIELD_THREE) +
                ' / ' + Coalesce(REPLACE(INT_FIELD_FOUR, '', '-'),
                        Isnull(INT_FIELD_FOUR, '-'), INT_FIELD_FOUR) + ' ', '- / - ',
        '')
END
AS FIELD2


FROM TABLEX

Answer 1

how about this?

CASE WHEN MyCondition = 1 AND (INT_FIELD_ONE IS NOT NULL OR INT_FIELD_TWO IS NOT NULL) THEN concat..
     WHEN MyCondition = 1 THEN NULL -- at that point we know that both are null
     ELSE ... END

Notice that now you don’t need the REPLACE function when you are doing the concat because you know for sure that one of your fields is not null