PL/pgSQL CASE Statement

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn about the PL/pgSQL case that executes statements based on a certain condition.

Introduction to PL/pgSQL CASE Statment

Besides the if statement, PostgreSQL provides the case statements that allow you to execute a block of code based on conditions.

The case statement selects a when section to execute from a list of when sections based on a condition.

The case statement has two forms:

• Simple case statement
• Searched case statement

Notice that you should not be confused about the case statement and case expression. The case expression evaluates to a value while the case statement selects a section to execute based on conditions.

1) Simple case statement

Here’s the basic syntax of the simple case statement:

case search-expression
   when expression_1 [, expression_2, ...] then
      when-statements
  [ ... ]
  [else
      else-statements ]
END case;

The search-expression is an expression that evaluates to a result.

The case statement compares the result of the search-expression with the expression in each when branch using equal operator ( =) from top to bottom.

If the case statement finds a match, it will execute the corresponding when section. Additionally, it stops checking the remaining when sections

If the case statement cannot find any match, it will execute the else section.

The else section is optional. If the result of the search-expression does not match expression in the when sections and the else section does not exist, the case statement will raise a case_not_found exception.

The following example shows how to use a simple case statement:

do $$
declare
	rate film.rental_rate%type;
	price_segment varchar(50);
begin
    -- get the rental rate
    select rental_rate into rate
    from film
    where film_id = 100;

	-- assign the price segment
	if found then
		case rate
		   when 0.99 then
              price_segment =  'Mass';
		   when 2.99 then
              price_segment = 'Mainstream';
		   when 4.99 then
              price_segment = 'High End';
		   else
	    	  price_segment = 'Unspecified';
		   end case;

		raise notice '%', price_segment;
	else
		raise notice 'film not found';
    end if;
end; $$

Output:

NOTICE:  High End

How it works.

First, select the rental rate of the film with id 100.

Second, assign price segment to the price_segment variable if the film id 100 exists or a message otherwise.

Based on the rental rates 0.99, 2.99, or 4.99, the case statement assigns mass, mainstream, or high-end to the price_segment variable. If the rental rate is not one of these values, the case statement assigns the string Unspecified to the price_segment variable.

The following flowchart illustrates the simple case statement in this example:

2) Searched case statement

The following syntax shows the basic syntax of the searched case statement:

case
    when boolean-expression-1 then
      statements
  [ when boolean-expression-2 then
      statements
    ... ]
  [ else
      statements ]
end case;

In this syntax, the case statement evaluates the boolean expressions sequentially from top to bottom until it finds an expression that evaluates to true

Subsequently, the case statement executes the corresponding when section and immediately stops searching for the remaining expressions.

If no expression evaluates to true, the case statement will execute the else section.

The else section is optional. If you omit the else section and there is no expression evaluated to true, the case statement will raise the case_not_found exception.

The following example illustrates how to use a simple case statement:

do $$
declare
    total_payment numeric;
    service_level varchar(25) ;
begin
     select sum(amount) into total_payment
     from Payment
     where customer_id = 100;

	 if found then
	    case
		   when total_payment > 200 then
               service_level = 'Platinum' ;
           when total_payment > 100 then
	           service_level = 'Gold' ;
           else
               service_level = 'Silver' ;
        end case;
		raise notice 'Service Level: %', service_level;
     else
	    raise notice 'Customer not found';
	 end if;
end; $$

How it works:

• First, select the total payment paid by the customer id 100 from the payment table.
• Then, assign the service level to the customer based on the total payment

The following diagram illustrates the logic:

Notice that the searched case statement is similar to the if then elsif statement.

Summary

• Use the case statement to execute a section based on certain conditions.
• Use a simple case statement to compare a value with a list of values and if a match is found, execute a section.
• Use a searched case statement to evaluate a list of conditions and execute a section if the condition is true.