Question

Sorry for the stupid question but I am fairly new to SQL and I’m trying to do something really simple. I have create a view made up of 3 tables and it works perfectly. However I require some of the fields to use some form of formatting. I’m using the SQL Server Management Studio GUI to create this view.

I have 2 columns in the view that require validation: Gender and DOB

The gender contains either ‘M’, ‘F’ or blank and I need to change this in the view to output 'Male' or 'Female'.

The DOB contains an unformated string of date I need to format that into DD/MM/YYYY.

Where should I create this validation, in the interest of laying all of my cards on the table here is the create view script:

CREATE VIEW [dbo].[PMIPatient]
AS
   SELECT     
      dbo.refPasPatientRec8Master.Patient_Internal_number AS HospitalNumber, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.[H+C_Number] AS NHSNumber, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Patient_Title AS Salutation, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Surname, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Forenames AS Forename, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Sex_Code AS Gender, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Date_of_Birth AS Dob, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Date_of_Death AS Dod, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Address_Line_1 AS Address1, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Address_Line_2 AS Address2, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Address_Line_3 AS Address3, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Address_Line_4 AS Address4, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.[Postcode/Pseudo_postcode] AS Postcode, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec8Master.Patients_Phone_Number AS Telephone1, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec39Master.Work_Telephone_Number AS Telephone2, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.GP_Code AS GPGMCode, 
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Death_Indicator AS deceasedFlag
FROM         
      dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master 
INNER JOIN
      dbo.refPasPatientRec39Master ON dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Patient_Internal_number = dbo.refPasPatientRec39Master.Patient_Internal_number 
INNER JOIN
      dbo.refPasPatientRec8Master ON dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Patient_Internal_number = dbo.refPasPatientRec8Master.Patient_Internal_number

Answer 1

All this is assuming your using MS-SQL!

To change the return value of your Sex_Code then use a CASE statement. See this link for more information.

Change this:

dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Sex_Code AS Gender

To this:

CASE dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Sex_Code
     WHEN 'M' THEN 'Male' 
     WHEN 'F' THEN 'Female'
     ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS Gender

To format your Date_of_Birth value then use the CONVERT method to convert it to an NVARCHAR with the specified style (the 103 parameter). See this link for more details.

Change this:

dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Date_of_Birth AS Dob

To:

CONVERT(NVARCHAR(10), dbo.refPasPatientRec1Master.Date_of_Birth, 103) AS Dob