Providing an alternative result when there is no result

From: Joshua Berry <yoberi(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Postgresql General Mailing list <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Providing an alternative result when there is no result
Date: 2009-05-18 19:13:56
Message-ID: F7CBFA5D-5253-44C6-9CCE-59BF236FE0D8@gmail.com
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Hello all,

Is there an easy and efficient way to return a boolean false for a
query that returns no result, and true for one that does return a
result?

Currently we select the result into a temp table.

SELECT INTO temp_table id FROM ... ;
IF temp_table IS NULL THEN
resp:= 'NO';
ELSE
resp:= 'YES';
END IF;

I'd like to combine this into one step like this:
SELECT
CASE
WHEN id is null THEN 'NO'::text
ELSE 'YES'::text
END
FROM ...;

But, this is not have SELECT's work, I suppose. The CASE is never
encountered when there is no result, so in the "NO" case, NULL is
returned.

Any hints/tips? Is our original solution okay, or is there something
we can do to improve things?

Thanks,

Joshua Berry

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