Select columnValue if the column exists otherwise null

Question

I\'m wondering if I can select the value of a column if the column exists and just select null otherwise. In other words I\'d like to \"lift\" the select statement to handl

Answer 1

you can use dynamic SQL.

first you need to check exist column and then create dynamic query.

DECLARE @query NVARCHAR(MAX) = '
SELECT FirstColumn, SecondColumn, '+
  (CASE WHEN exists (SELECT 1 FROM syscolumns 
  WHERE name = 'ColumnName' AND id = OBJECT_ID('TableName'))
      THEN 'ColumnName'
      ELSE 'NULL as ThreeColumn'
   END) + '
FROM TableName'

EXEC sp_executesql @query;