conditional clause in Claudera - sql

Question

I am trying to get an if, then clause working in cloudera - along the lines:
if (appointment_purpose = '') and
appointment_purpose2 = '') and
appointment_type2 = '') and
appointment_type3 = '') and
appointment_type4 = '') and
appointment_type5 = '') and
discuss_other ' ') then
discuss_other = 0
else discuss_other = 1,
How do I get this to work?
If all appointment types and appointment purposes were empty, then discuss_other should also be empty, that is 0 - otherwise discuss_other should be 1

Answer 1

Try this:
SELECT (CASE WHEN appointment_purpose = ''
AND appointment_purpose2 = ''
AND appointment_type2 = ''
AND appointment_type3 = ''
AND appointment_type4 = ''
AND appointment_type5 = ''
AND discuss_other ' '
THEN 0
ELSE 1
) as discuss_other
FROM tableName

Answer 2

In SQL, "empty" typically means NULL. So, I wonder if you really intend one of these constructs:
select (case when appointment_purpose is null and
appointment_purpose2 is null and
appointment_type2 is null and
appointment_type3 is null and
appointment_type4 is null and
appointment_type5 is null and
discuss_other is null
then 0 else 1
end) as discuss_other
Because one of the values has a space, I wonder if you want to handle both spaces and null values:
select (case when (appointment_purpose is null or replace(appointment_purpose, ' ', '') = '') and
(appointment_purpose2 is null or replace(appointment_purpose2, ' ', '') = '') and
(appointment_purpose3 is null or replace(appointment_purpose3, ' ', '') = '') and
(appointment_purpose4 is null or replace(appointment_purpose4, ' ', '') = '') and
(appointment_purpose5 is null or replace(appointment_purpose5, ' ', '') = '') and
(discuss_other is null or replace(discuss_other, ' ', '') = '')
then 0 else 1
end) as discuss_other
Finally, multiple columns in the same table that are acting like an array is usually a bad sign. Normally, this suggests that you want a junction table.