DECODE QUESTION

Question

I have 4 columns that I want to test for the existance of a value greater than 0 in order of last to first and then return the value of the first column found that has a value > 0.
I have columns discount_2,discount_1,supplier_2 and supplier_1. When I try to decode these columns it will return a value when there is a value in discount_1 or 2 but not when there is not a value in discount_1 or 2 and there is a value in supplier_1 or 2.
My decode statement looks like:
DECODE(DISCOUNT_2,NULL,DISCOUNT_1,
DECODE(DISCOUNT_1,NULL,SUPPLIER_2),SUPPLIER_1) AS "ORIG_COST"
Will the decode work in this example or would CASE work better and what would it look like?

Answer 1

Hi,
[email protected] wrote:
Yes this worked well an is more legible than the COALESCE a glance.
ThanksGlad to help!
Be aware that
CASE
     WHEN  discount2 > 0     THEN discount2
     WHEN  discount1 > 0     THEN discount1
     WHEN  supplier2 > 0     THEN supplier2
     WHEN  supplier1 > 0     THEN supplier1
ENDis NOT the same as
COALESCE ( discount2
      , discount1
      , supplier2
      , supplier1
      )if any of the values are less that or equal to 0.