Filter if values provided otherwise return everything - sql

Question

Say I have a table t with 2 columns:
a int
b int
I can do a query such as:
select b
from t
where b > a
and a in(1,2,3)
order by b
where 1,2,3 is provided from the outside.
Obviously, the query can return no rows. In that case, I'd like to select everything as if the query did not have the and a in(1,2,3) part. That is, I'd like:
if exists (
select b
from t
where b > a
and a in(1,2,3)
)
select b
from t
where b > a
and a in(1,2,3)
order by b
else
select b
from t
where b > a
order by b
Is there a way to do this:
Without running two queries (one for exists, the other one the actual query)
That is less verbose than repeating queries (real queries are quite long, so DRY and all that stuff)

Answer 1

Using NOT EXISTS with a Sub Query to Determine if condition exists
SELECT b
FROM
t
WHERE
b > a
AND (
NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM #Table WHERE a IN (1,2,3))
OR a IN (1,2,3)
)
ORDER BY
b
The reason this works is because if the condition exists then the OR statement will include the rows and if the condition does not exist then the NOT EXISTS will include ALL rows.
Or With Common Table Expression and window Function with Conditional Aggregation.
WITH cte AS (
SELECT
b
,CASE WHEN a IN (1,2,3) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END as MeetsCondition
,COUNT(CASE WHEN a IN (1,2,3) THEN a END) OVER () as ConditionCount
FROM
t
)
SELECT
b
FROM
cte
WHERE
(ConditionCount > 0 AND MeetsCondition = 1)
OR (ConditionCount = 0)
ORDER BY
b

Answer 2

I find it a bit "ugly". Maybe it would be better to materialize output from your query within a temp table and then based on count from temp table perform first or second query (this limits accessing the original table from 3 times to 2 and you will be able to add some flag for qualifying rows for your condition not to repeat it). Other than that, read below . . .
Though, bear in mind that EXISTS query should execute pretty fast. It stops whether it finds any row that satisfies the condition.
You could achieve this using UNION ALL to combine resultset from constrained query and full query without constraint on a column and then decide what to show depending on output from first query using CASE statement.
How CASE statement works: when any row from constrained part of your query is found, return resultset from constrainted query else return everything omitting the constraint.
If your database supports using CTE use this solution:
with tmp_data as (
select *
from (
select 'constraint' as type, b
from t
where b > a
and a in (1,2,3) -- here goes your constraint
union all
select 'full query' as type, b
from t
where b > a
) foo
)
SELECT b
FROM tmp_data
WHERE
CASE WHEN (select count(*) from tmp_data where type = 'constraint') > 0
THEN type = 'constraint'
ELSE type = 'full query'
END
;