Conditional Expressions

What is a conditional expression?

A conditional expression is an expression you can use to select one of two values based on a Boolean condition. A conditional expression contains the conditional operator IF. . .THEN. . .ELSE and has the following format.

IF Boolean-expression THEN expression1 ELSE expression2

You can use a conditional expression as part of any other expression as long as the data type is appropriate.

Note: Do not confuse a conditional expression with the IF command, which has similar syntax but a different purpose. The IF command does not have a data type and is not evaluated like an expression.

How is a conditional expression processed?

A conditional expression is processed by first evaluating the Boolean expression; then:

• If the result of the Boolean expression is TRUE, then expression1 is evaluated and returns that value.

• If the result of the Boolean expression is FALSE, then expression2 is evaluated and returns that value.

The expression1 and expression2 arguments are any valid OLAP DML expressions that evaluate to the same basic data type. However, when the data type of either value is DATE, it is possible for the other value to have a numeric or text data type. Because both data types are expected to be DATE, it will convert the numeric or text value to a DATE. The data type of the whole expression is the same as the two expressions.

If the result of the Boolean expression is NA, then NA is returned.

Example: Report with conditional expression

This example shows a sales bonus report. The bonus is 5 percent of the amount that sales exceeded budget, but if sales in the district are below budget, then the bonus is zero.

limit month to 'JAN96' to 'JUN96'
limit product to 'TENTS'
report down district if sales-sales.plan lt 0 then 0 
       else .05*(sales-sales.plan)
PRODUCT: TENTS
        ---IF SALES-SALES.PLAN LT 0 THEN 0 ELSE .05*(SALES-SALES.PLAN)---
          ----------------------MONTH------------------------------
DISTRICT   JAN96    FEB96    MAR96     APR96    MAY96    JUN96
--------- -------- -------- -------- ------- --------- ----------
BOSTON      229.53     0.00     0.00    0.00    584.51     749.13
ATLANTA       0.00     0.00     0.00  190.34    837.62   1,154.87
CHICAGO       0.00     0.00     0.00   84.06    504.95     786.81
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