Count of non-null columns in each row

Question

I have a table that contains 4 columns and in the 5th column I want to store the count of how many non-null columns there are out of the previous 4. For example:

Whe

Answer 1

SELECT Column1, Column2, Column3, Column4,
  Column5 = LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(Column1,1),'')) 
          + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(Column2,1),''))
          + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(Column3,1),'')) 
          + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(Column4,1),''))
 FROM dbo.YourTable;

Demo:

DECLARE @x TABLE(a VARCHAR(32),b INT,c VARCHAR(32),d VARCHAR(32));

INSERT @x VALUES
('01',3023,NULL,'blat'),
('02',NULL, NULL,'blat'),
('03',5,NULL,'blat'),
('04',24,'bo','blat'),
(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL);

SELECT a, b, c, d,
    LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(a,1),'')) 
  + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(b,1),''))
  + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(c,1),'')) 
  + LEN(COALESCE(LEFT(d,1),''))
 FROM @x;