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mysqltruthiness

Evaluating truthy values

I wanted to say something like: 

 if field_1 then set field_2 = 1

Meaning, if field_1 holds a truthy value, do something else. Can an IF statement in sql execute this kind of evaluation?

Solution

  • Use CASE WHEN THEN and set field2 to 1 if the CASE WHEN is true, else use ELSE to set field2 to what it was before.

    UPDATE table 
SET field2 = CASE
WHEN field1 IS NOT NULL 
THEN 1
ELSE field2
END;