I have a table with a field named MINIMUM_AGE. The values stored in this field are of type nvarchar:
17 years
54 years
N/A
65 years
I would like to apply a WHERE clause on the column to check for a certain age range. To do that I need to parse out the age from the field values.
So, I think I need to select the first two characters, then cast them into an integer. Also, some fields may not contain numbers for the first two characters. Some may simply be N/A. So, I will need to check for that before casting.
Can someone explain how to accomplish this?
Here is the SQL Fiddle that demonstrates the below query:
SELECT CASE
WHEN MINIMUM_AGE <> 'N/A'
THEN CAST(LEFT(MINIMUM_AGE, 2) AS int)
ELSE 0
END
FROM MyTable
Note: the CASE expression can only return one data type. So, in the example above if the MINIMUM_AGE is N/A then it returns 0.
If you would rather have it return null, then use the following:
SELECT CASE
WHEN MINIMUM_AGE <> 'N/A'
THEN CAST(LEFT(MINIMUM_AGE, 2) AS int)
END
FROM MyTable
Related
how to show empty value for a int datatype in SQL?
I have a case statement on an int datatype column to show empty for the values less than or equal to 0.
case when [TotalValue] <= 0 Then ''
when [TotalValue] > 0 Then [TotalValue]
End as [TotalValue]
Right now, case statement is returning 0 for any values less than or equal to 0. I expect to have them as Empty. Having 0 instead of negative value is not a correct result.
How to convert the record to show only empty?
The problem of your code is that Then '' is automatically converted to int value, which happens to be 0 for empty strings (try select CAST('' as int) to check).The data type for ambiguously defined column (like yours) is determined from the data type precedence rules.
Unambiguously defining the data type of the column would resolve the issue.
I recommend trying to return NULL from the database, like this:
case when [TotalValue] <= 0 Then NULL
when [TotalValue] > 0 Then [TotalValue]
End as [TotalValue]
Most likely, your report engine will convert NULL to something like an empty string. In addition, you may be getting some benefits of ability to manipulate numeric values, if your report engine supports those (e.g. calculate average over selection).
Alternatively, try casting the values to string in SQL:
case when [TotalValue] <= 0 Then ''
when [TotalValue] > 0 Then CAST([TotalValue] as varchar)
End as [TotalValue]
I think the simplest construct is:
(case when TotalValue > 0 Then TotalValue
end) as TotalValue
You can always CAST the number to a VARCHAR (string) and then set it to an empty string when NULL:
ISNULL(CAST(TotalValue as varchar(10)),'') as TotalValue
Empty string is a concept that doesn't make sense for integer datatype.
Generally you should return the results to the application as integer datatype and use NULL for this and have your application display null as an empty string if desired.
If you do need to do this in SQL you are now dealing with strings rather than integers.
One way of converting to string and performing your desired formatting is with the FORMAT function.
SELECT FORMAT(TotalValue, '0;"";""')
FROM
(VALUES (1),
(0),
(-123),
(123456))T(TotalValue)
Returns
1
123456
I have a column of data where the length of each entry varies, e.g
12345678
123
AA
12345678912345
......
I wish to return value if the string length is between 6 and 10. If it's less than 6 or greater than 10, then return a blank.
In my example I would have one value 12345678 showing and three blanks.
You can use LEN function to test length of column value and CASE to return the value you want (supposing the column name is "field"):
SELECT CASE WHEN (LEN(field) >= 6 AND LEN(field) <= 10)
THEN field
ELSE '' END as 'YourField'
FROM nameoftable
To get it without the blanks you would do:
SELECT FIELD
FROM table_name
WHERE LEN(FIELD) >= 6 AND LEN(FIELD) <= 10
If you don't mind having the output for each row presented in a new column, you could do the following:
Assume the data you have is stored in "colA" in a table called "yourTable", then:
select case when len(colA) between 6 and 10 then colA else '' end as colB from yourTable
The syntax above will work in Microsoft SQL Server. You may have to tweak to find the equivalent length and comparison functions in whichever RDMS you happen to be using.
Another issue you may face is data type conversion issues. If your colA is defined as a character field, the code above should work without issue (i.e., you'll get blanks back for values outside of your test criteria). If colA is numeric, then using '' to insert a blank may actually return 0. It's up to you to decide how you want to handle this issue.
I want to update a column according to another column value.
for example, In Value column i have numbers between 0 to 1.
I want to check values and if:
Values < 0.45 set ValueStatus=Bad
Values >=0.45 and values<0.55 set ValueStatus =SoSo
Values >= 0.55 set ValueStatus=Good
I wrote the query like this:
update table
set ValueStatus=(case
when Values<'0.45' then 'Bad'
when (Values>='0.45' and Values<'0.55') then 'SoSo'
when Values>='0.55' then 'Good'
else Values
end)
But i get this error :
Error converting data type varchar to float.
Type of Values is Float and ValueStatus is Nvarchar(50)
Thanks
try this (you were adding ' to the numbers and SQL takes them as varchar) :
update table
set ValueStatus=(case when Values<0.45 then 'Bad'
when Values>=0.45 and Values<0.55 then 'SoSo' when Values>=0.55
then 'Good' else Values end )
I believe your problem is based on how the case statement determines the return type. You can read about it here and here.
The numeric types have a higher precedence than the string types. With the else values, you have four clauses in the `case. Three return strings; one returns a number. The number trumps the types so it tries to turn everything into a number.
You can mimic this problem with:
select (case when 1=1 then 'abc' else 12.3 end)
Happily, you can fix this by removing the else clause which is not needed in this case.
I've got an Sqlite database where one of the columns is defined as "TEXT NOT NULL". Some of the values are strings and some can be cast to a DOUBLE and some can be case to INTEGER. Once I've narrowed it down to DOUBLE values, I want to do a query that gets a range of data. Suppose my column is named "Value". Can I do this?
SELECT * FROM Tbl WHERE ... AND Value >= 23 AND Value < 42
Is that going to do some kind of ASCII comparison or a numeric comparison? INTEGER or REAL? Does the BETWEEN operator work the same way?
And what happens if I do this?
SELECT MAX(Value) FROM Tbl WHERE ...
Will it do string or integer or floating-point comparisons?
It is all explained in the Datatypes In SQLite Version 3 article. For example, the answer to the first portion of questions is
An INTEGER or REAL value is less than any TEXT or BLOB value. When an INTEGER or REAL is compared to another INTEGER or REAL, a numerical comparison is performed.
This is why SELECT 9 < '1' and SELECT 9 < '11' both give 1 (true).
The expression "a BETWEEN b AND c" is treated as two separate binary comparisons "a >= b AND a <= c"
The most important point to know is that column type is merely an annotation; SQLite is dynamically typed so each value can have any type.
you cant convert text to integer or double so you wont be able to do what you want.
If the column were varchar you could have a chance by doing:
select *
from Tbl
WHERE ISNUMERIC(Value ) = 1 --condition to avoid a conversion from string to int for example
and cast(value as integer) > 1 --rest of your conditions
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).