How to check if a variable has a value in a SQL Server 2008 stored procedure

Question

I need to check whether a variable has a value or not.

declare @name varchar(20)

set @name = (SELECT Product_Name 
             FROM tb_new_product_Name_id 
             WHERE Product_Name = @productName)

 if (@name )   // here I need to check it 

How to do it? thanks

Answer 1

Try this

if (@name is null or @value = '') //it will indicate whether it contains a value or not

Answer 2

Just do the IF directly, using EXISTS instead:

IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM tb_new_product_Name_id 
        where Product_Name=@productName)
BEGIN
    --Do something because a row existed with that name
END

We may be able to further assist with simplifying your code if you told us more on what you were planning to do having confirmed a row existed in tb_new_product_Name_id. It looks like you're writing very procedural code - first I'll do X, then I'll do Y, then I'll do Z, etc. SQL excels as a language where you tell it "what to do" - for the entire data set you want to compute - not "how to do it" in a step by step, row by row fashion.