"CASE" statement within "WHERE" clause in SQL Server 2008

Question

First off, the CASE statement must be part of the expression, not the expression itself.

In other words, you can have:

WHERE co.DTEntered = CASE 
                          WHEN LEN('blah') = 0 
                               THEN co.DTEntered 
                          ELSE '2011-01-01' 
                     END 

But it won't work the way you have written them eg:

WHERE 
    CASE LEN('TestPerson')
        WHEN 0 THEN co.personentered  = co.personentered
   ELSE co.personentered LIKE '%TestPerson'
    END 

You may have better luck using combined OR statements like this:

WHERE (
        (LEN('TestPerson') = 0 
             AND co.personentered = co.personentered
        ) 
        OR 
        (LEN('TestPerson') <> 0 
             AND co.personentered LIKE '%TestPerson')
      )

Although, either way I'm not sure how great of a query plan you'll get. These types of shenanigans in a WHERE clause will often prevent the query optimizer from utilizing indexes.

Try the following:

SELECT * FROM emp_master 
WHERE emp_last_name= 
CASE emp_first_name 
 WHEN 'test'    THEN 'test' 
 WHEN 'Mr name' THEN 'name'
END

This should solve your problem for the time being but I must remind you it isn't a good approach :

WHERE 
            CASE LEN('TestPerson')
                WHEN 0 THEN 
                        CASE WHEN co.personentered  = co.personentered THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
                ELSE 
                        CASE WHEN co.personentered LIKE '%TestPerson' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
            END = 1
        AND cc.ccnum = CASE LEN('TestFFNum')
                            WHEN 0 THEN cc.ccnum 
                            ELSE 'TestFFNum' 
                       END 
        AND CASE LEN('2011-01-09 11:56:29.327') 
                WHEN 0 THEN CASE WHEN co.DTEntered = co.DTEntered THEN 1 ELSE 0 END 
                ELSE 
                    CASE LEN('2012-01-09 11:56:29.327') 
                        WHEN 0 THEN 
                            CASE WHEN co.DTEntered >= '2011-01-09 11:56:29.327' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END 
                        ELSE 
                            CASE WHEN co.DTEntered BETWEEN '2011-01-09 11:56:29.327' 
                                                        AND '2012-01-09 11:56:29.327' 
                                                     THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
                    END
            END = 1
        AND tl.storenum < 699 

I think that the beginning of your query should look like that:

SELECT
    tl.storenum [Store #], 
    co.ccnum [FuelFirst Card #], 
    co.dtentered [Date Entered],
    CASE st.reasonid 
        WHEN 1 THEN 'Active' 
        WHEN 2 THEN 'Not Active' 
        WHEN 0 THEN st.ccstatustypename 
        ELSE 'Unknown' 
    END [Status],
    CASE st.ccstatustypename 
        WHEN 'Active' THEN ' ' 
        WHEN 'Not Active' THEN ' ' 
        ELSE st.ccstatustypename 
        END [Reason],
    UPPER(REPLACE(REPLACE(co.personentered,'RT\\\\',''),'RACETRAC\\\\','')) [Person Entered],
    co.comments [Comments or Notes]
FROM comments co
    INNER JOIN cards cc ON co.ccnum=cc.ccnum
    INNER JOIN customerinfo ci ON cc.customerinfoid=ci.customerinfoid
    INNER JOIN ccstatustype st ON st.ccstatustypeid=cc.ccstatustypeid
    INNER JOIN customerstatus cs ON cs.customerstatuscd=ci.customerstatuscd
    INNER JOIN transactionlog tl ON tl.transactionlogid=co.transactionlogid
    LEFT JOIN stores s ON s.StoreNum = tl.StoreNum
WHERE 
    CASE 
      WHEN (LEN([TestPerson]) = 0 AND co.personentered  = co.personentered) OR (LEN([TestPerson]) <> 0 AND co.personentered LIKE '%'+TestPerson) THEN 1
      ELSE 0
      END = 1
    AND 

BUT

what is in the tail is completely not understandable