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7.13.1 CASE

The SQL CASE expression is a generic conditional expression, similar to if/else statements in other languages:

CASE WHEN condition THEN result
     [WHEN ...]
     [ELSE result]
END

CASE clauses can be used wherever an expression is valid. condition is an expression that returns a boolean result. If the result is true then the value of the CASE expression is the result that follows the condition. If the result is false any subsequent WHEN clauses are searched in the same manner. If no WHEN condition is true then the value of the case expression is the result in the ELSE clause. If the ELSE clause is omitted and no condition matches, the result is null.

An example:

SELECT * FROM test;

 a
---
 1
 2
 3

SELECT a,
       CASE WHEN a=1 THEN 'one'
            WHEN a=2 THEN 'two'
            ELSE 'other'
       END
    FROM test;

 a | case
---+-------
 1 | one
 2 | two
 3 | other

The data types of all the result expressions must be convertible to a single output type. See section 8.5 UNION, CASE, and Related Constructs for more detail.

The following “simple” CASE expression is a specialized variant of the general form above:

CASE expression
    WHEN value THEN result
    [WHEN ...]
    [ELSE result]
END

The expression is computed and compared to all the value specifications in the WHEN clauses until one is found that is equal. If no match is found, the result in the ELSE clause (or a null value) is returned. This is similar to the switch statement in C.

The example above can be written using the simple CASE syntax:

SELECT a,
       CASE a WHEN 1 THEN 'one'
              WHEN 2 THEN 'two'
              ELSE 'other'
       END
    FROM test;

 a | case
---+-------
 1 | one
 2 | two
 3 | other

A CASE expression does not evaluate any subexpressions that are not needed to determine the result. For example, this is a possible way of avoiding a division-by-zero failure:

SELECT ... WHERE CASE WHEN x <> 0 THEN y/x > 1.5 ELSE false END;