Question

This might not make any sense, but what i’m trying to do is select a column based on when another column is least. For example, I have 3 int columns and 3 varchar columns

In the below example Unit = int, and Link = varchar

Unit1|Link1|Unit2|Link2|Unit3|Link3
72|www.google.com|43|www.yahoo.com|9212|www.lycos.com

In the above example Unit2 is least so I’d want to select Link2.

This is how i’m selecting least, so any help would be awesome

select Least(
                       Coalesce(myTable.Unit1,
                                myTable.Unit2,
                                myTable.Unit3),
                       Coalesce(myTable.Unit1,
                                myTable.Unit2,
                                myTable.Unit3),
                       Coalesce(myTable.Unit1,
                                myTable.Unit2,
                                myTable.Unit3))
                       AS LowestUnit
from myTable

Answer 1

One approach:

SELECT CASE WHEN Unit1 = LEAST(Unit1,Unit2,Unit3) THEN Link1 
            WHEN Unit2 = LEAST(Unit1,Unit2,Unit3) THEN Link2
            WHEN Unit3 = LEAST(Unit1,Unit2,Unit3) THEN Link3
       END AS LinkL

(You could use an ELSE Link3 in place of that third WHEN for an equivalent result, I just went with checking all three, and letting the ELSE default to NULL.)

Equivalent and more terse:

SELECT CASE LEAST(Unit1,Unit2,Unit3)
            WHEN Unit1 THEN Link1 
            WHEN Unit2 THEN Link2
            WHEN Unit3 THEN Link3
       END AS LinkL