Dynamic case statement using SQL Server 2008 R2

Question

I have the following case statement as shown below:

Example:

I have the case statement:

case cola 
    when cola between '2001-01-01' and '2001-01-05' then 'G1'
    when cola between '2001-01-10' and '2001-01-15' then 'G2'
    when cola between '2001-01-20' and '2001-01-25' then 'G3'
    when cola between '2001-02-01' and '2001-02-05' then 'G4'
    when cola between '2001-02-10' and '2001-02-15' then 'G5'
    else '' 
end

Note: Now I want to create dynamic case statement because of the values dates and name passing as a parameter and it may change.

Declare @dates varchar(max) = '2001-01-01to2001-01-05,2001-01-10to2001-01-15,
                               2001-01-20to2001-01-25,2001-02-01to2001-02-05,
                               2001-02-10to2001-02-15'

Declare @names varchar(max) = 'G1,G2,G3,G4,G5'

The values in the variables may change as per the requirements, it will be dynamic. So the case statement should be dynamic without using loop.

My bad try:

DECLARE @Name varchar(max)
DECLARE @Dates varchar(max)
DECLARE @SQL varchar(max)
DECLARE @SQL1 varchar(max)

SET @Name = 'G1,G2,G3,G4,G5'
SET @dates = '2001-01-01to2001-01-05,2001-01-10to2001-01-15,
              2001-01-20to2001-01-25,2001-02-01to2001-02-05,
              2001-02-10to2001-02-15'

SELECT @SQL =  STUFF((SELECT  ' ' + Value FROM 
(
SELECT 'WHEN Cola Between '''' AND '''' THEN ''' + A.Value + '''' AS Value 
FROM 
(
    SELECT 
        Split.a.value('.', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS Value  
        FROM  
        (
        SELECT CAST ('<M>' + REPLACE(@Name, ',',
            '</M><M>') + '</M>' AS XML) AS Value 
        ) AS A 
        CROSS APPLY Value.nodes ('/M') AS Split(a)
 ) AS A
) AS B
FOR XML PATH (''), type).value('.', 'Varchar(max)'),1,1,'') + ''

SET @SQL1 = 'CASE Cola '+@SQL+' ELSE '''' END'

PRINT(@SQL1);

Stuck: But got stuck to split the @dates 2001-01-01to2001-01-05 into BETWEEN '2001-01-01' AND '2001-01-05'.

Answer 1

Just create a temp table (which can be inserted into dynamically) and use it in a LEFT JOIN. A LEFT JOIN (along with the COALESCE) accounts for the ELSE '' condition, but if there was no ELSE condition and all ranges were represented in the data, an INNER JOIN should be used (and no need for the COALESCE).

In order to dynamically populate the temp table from two separate variables that whose data is aligned only by position within the CSV list, and one of which is a two-dimensional array needing to be split on both comma and the string "to", I used a CTE (to make it easier to split the two-dimension @Dates variable) and a SQLCLR-based string splitter. The splitter I used is from the SQL# library (which I am the creator of but this function is in the Free version) but you can use any splitter you like (but please don't use a WHILE loop-based splitter as that is just silly).

CREATE TABLE #Cola
(
  StartDate DATETIME NOT NULL,
  EndDate DATETIME NOT NULL,
  Name NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
);

DECLARE @Dates VARCHAR(MAX) = '2001-01-01to2001-01-05,2001-01-10to2001-01-15,
                               2001-01-20to2001-01-25,2001-02-01to2001-02-05,
                               2001-02-10to2001-02-15';

DECLARE @Names VARCHAR(MAX) = 'G1,G2,G3,G4,G5';

-- dynamic population of temp table from two variables (@Dates being 2 dimensional)
;WITH cte AS
(
  SELECT vals.SplitNum,
         vals.SplitVal,
         CHARINDEX(N'to', vals.SplitVal) AS [WhereToSplit]
  FROM   SQL#.String_Split4k(@dates, ',', 1) vals
)
INSERT INTO #Cola (StartDate, EndDate, Name)
  SELECT CONVERT(DATETIME, SUBSTRING(cte.SplitVal, (cte.WhereToSplit - 10), 10)),
         CONVERT(DATETIME, SUBSTRING(cte.SplitVal, (cte.WhereToSplit + 2), 10)),
         names.SplitVal
  FROM cte
  INNER JOIN SQL#.String_Split4k(@names, ',', 1) names
          ON names.SplitNum = cte.SplitNum; -- keep the values aligned by position


SELECT tab.fields, COALESCE(cola.[Name], '') AS [Cola]
FROM   SchemaName.TableName tab
LEFT JOIN #Cola cola
        ON tab.cola BETWEEN cola.StartDate AND cola.EndDate