Can Bit be assigned values?
for example instead of
0=False, 1= true
it will be like below
0=outdoor 1=indoor
if able to then how do i assign the values to bit?
(SQL code)
No, Bit is a single bit, it has 3 (in MS SQL) possible states: 1,0 and NULL
The standard way to do this would be to have an 'Indoor' field, and use 1/0 as true/false.
In TSQL You could use a case statement to present this as indoor/outdoor at the database level:
select
case when indoor=1 then 'indoor'
else 'outdoor' end
as location
from table_name
Related
I have a column that is of type 'bit'. I want the column to display either the word yes (1) or (0) if no. Is there somewhere I can set this?
If not is there a replacement for boolean I can use? True/false will do fine as a replacement
I am using SQL Server-management 2008 R2
I'm trying to amend the table.
Try using case:
select case
when MyBitField = 1 then
'yes'
else
'no'
end
from MyTable
I am trying to connect a Filemaker DB to Firebird SQL DB in both ways import to FM and export back to Firebird DB.
So far it works using the MBS Plug-in but FM 13 Pro canot handle NULL.
That means that for example Timestamp fields that are empty (NULL) produce a "0" value.
Thats means in Time something like 01.01.1889 00:00:00.
So my idea was to simply ignore fields containing NULL.
But here my poor knowlege stops.
First I thought I can do this with WHERE, but this is ignoring whole records sets:
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE FIELD IS NOT NULL
Also I tried to filter it later on like this:
If (IsEmpty (MBS("SQL.GetFieldAsDateTime"; $command; "FIELD") ) = 0 ; MBS("SQL.GetFieldAsDateTime"; $command; "FIELD"))
With no result either.
This is a direct answer to halfbit's suggestion, which is correct but not for this SQL dialect. In a query to provide a replacement value when a field is NULL you need to use COALESCE(x,y). Where if X is null, Y will be used, and if Y is null then the field is NULL. Thats why it is common for me to use it like COALESCE(table.field,'') such that a constant is always outputted if table.field happens to be NULL.
select COALESCE(null,'Hello') as stackoverflow from rdb$database
You can use COALESCE() for more than two arguments, I just used two for conciseness.
I dont know the special SQL dialect, but
SELECT field1, field2, value(field, 0), ...FROM TABLE
should help you:
value gives the first argument, ie, your field if it is NOT NULL or the second argument if it is.
In most RDBMS:es, this work:
select (5 > 3)
and evaluates to true. It doesn't work in MS Transact SQL and the only workaround I've found is to write:
select case when 5 > 3 then 1 else 0 end
Which kind of sucks because it is much more verbose. Is there a better way to write the above kind of checks?
If the problem is arithmetic comparison:
select (5 - 3)
Then at the application level test for < or = or > 0.
You could write it as a scalar-valued function, but it will be very slow on large datasets.
If your program often requires such case constructs you could create your set of functions that will have user functions like Bool_IsGreater(left, right) that will return you your desired 0 or 1.
SQL Server doesn't support boolean value type anyway even for basic column use.
If you will need performance and those 5 and 3 values come naturally from some select query you might want to create a new column and set its value to 1 or 0 by trigger or something, which could help with performance.
I'm attempting to create a T-SQL case statement to filter a query based on whether a field is NULL or if it contains a value. It would be simple if you could assign NULL or NOT NULL as the result of a case but that doesn't appear possible.
Here's the psuedocode:
WHERE DateColumn = CASE #BitInput
WHEN 0 THEN (all null dates)
WHEN 1 THEN (any non-null date)
WHEN NULL THEN (return all rows)
From my understanding, the WHEN 0 condition can be achieved by not providing a WHEN condition at all (to return a NULL value).
The WHEN 1 condition seems like it could use a wildcard character but I'm getting an error regarding type conversion. Assigning the column to itself fixes this.
I have no idea what to do for the WHEN NULL condition. My internal logic seems to think assigning the column to itself should solve this but it does not as stated above.
I have recreated this using dynamic SQL but for various reasons I'd prefer to have it created in the native code.
I'd appreciate any input. Thanks.
The CASE expression (as OMG Ponies said) is mixing and matching datatypes (as you spotted), in addition you can not compare to NULL using = or WHEN.
WHERE
(#BitInput = 0 AND DateColumn IS NULL)
OR
(#BitInput = 1 AND DateColumn IS NOT NULL)
OR
#BitInput IS NULL
You could probably write it using CASE but what you want is an OR really.
You can also use IF..ELSE or UNION ALL to separate the 3 cases
I'm selecting a value out of a table that can either be an integer or a nvarchar. It's stored as nvarchar. I want to conditionally call a function that will convert this value if it is an integer (that is, if it can be converted into an integer), otherwise I want to select the nvarchar with no conversion.
This is hitting a SQL Server 2005 database.
select case
when T.Value (is integer) then SomeConversionFunction(T.Value)
else T.Value
end as SomeAlias
from SomeTable T
Note that it is the "(is integer)" part that I'm having trouble with. Thanks in advance.
UPDATE
Check the comment on Ian's answer. It explains the why and the what a little better. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts.
select case
when ISNUMERIC(T.Value) then T.Value
else SomeConversionFunction(T.Value)
end as SomeAlias
Also, have you considered using the sql_variant data type?
The result set can only have one type associated with it for each column, you will get an error if the first row converts to an integer and there are strings that follow:
Msg 245, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Conversion failed when converting the nvarchar value 'word' to data type int.
try this to see:
create table testing
(
strangevalue nvarchar(10)
)
insert into testing values (1)
insert into testing values ('word')
select * from testing
select
case
when ISNUMERIC(strangevalue)=1 THEN CONVERT(int,strangevalue)
ELSE strangevalue
END
FROM testing
best bet is to return two columns:
select
case
when ISNUMERIC(strangevalue)=1 THEN CONVERT(int,strangevalue)
ELSE NULL
END AS StrangvalueINT
,case
when ISNUMERIC(strangevalue)=1 THEN NULL
ELSE strangevalue
END AS StrangvalueString
FROM testing
or your application can test for numeric and do your special processing.
You can't have a column that is sometimes an integer and sometimes a string. Return the string and check it using int.TryParse() in the client code.
ISNUMERIC. However, this accepts +, - and decimals so more work is needed.
However, you can't have the columns as both datatypes in one go: you'll need 2 columns.
I'd suggest that you deal with this in your client or use an ISNUMERIC replacement
IsNumeric will get you part of the way there. You can then add some further code to check whether it is an integer
for example:
select top 10
case
when isnumeric(mycolumn) = 1 then
case
when convert(int, mycolumn) = mycolumn then
'integer'
else
'number but not an integer'
end
else
'not a number'
end
from mytable
To clarify some other answers, your SQL statement can't return different data types in one column (it looks like the other answers are saying you can't store different data types in one column - yours are all strign represenations).
Therefore, if you use ISNUMERIC or another function, the value will be cast as a string in the table that is returned anyway if there are other strigns being selected.
If you are selecting only one value then it could return a string or a number, however your front end code will need to be able to return the different data types.
Just to add to some of the other comments about not being able to return different data types in the same column... Database columns should know what datatype they are holding. If they don't then that should be a BIG red flag that you have a design problem somewhere, which almost guarantees future headaches (like this one).