Select a column if other column is null

Question

I need to select a field called ProgramID from a table and if the ProgramID is NULL then I need to select the value in the InterimProgramID from the same table and alias it

Answer 1

You can use either the ISNULL function or the COALESCE function. They both do pretty much the same thing, however ISNULL only takes two parameters and COALESCE takes multiple parameters (returning the first non-null it encounters). Both try the first param, then the second, (and COALESCE continues on)

DECLARE @IAMNULL VARCHAR
DECLARE @IAMNOTNULL VARCHAR
SET @IAMNOTNULL = 'NOT NULL'

SELECT ISNULL(@IAMNULL, @IAMNOTNULL)
--Output: 'NOT NULL'

DECLARE @IAMNULLALSO VARCHAR

SELECT COALESCE(@IAMNULL, @IAMNULLALSO, @IAMNOTNULL)
--Output: 'NOT NULL'