Reference

CASE

Inline conditional expression. Evaluates WHEN branches top-to-bottom and returns the first match; returns ELSE (or NULL if omitted) when nothing matches. Works anywhere an expression is allowed: SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, aggregate arguments.

Syntax #

sql
CASE
  WHEN condition_1 THEN value_1
  WHEN condition_2 THEN value_2
  ELSE fallback
END

Example #

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Warning

Branch order is evaluated top-down, first match wins. Overlapping conditions with the broad one listed first make later branches unreachable, and the query still runs with no error. Write branches from narrowest to broadest (>= 200 before >= 50). Missing ELSE silently returns NULL, which can distort averages and filtered sums; spell out the fallback unless NULL is truly what you want.