If Else If In a Sql Server Function

Question

I have this function I am trying to create. When I parse it, it works fine, but to actually create the function in the database it says my column names are invalid. That is not true, I spelled them correctly. Here is the code:

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fnTally] (@SchoolId nvarchar(50))
RETURNS int

AS 

BEGIN 

DECLARE @Final nvarchar
IF EXISTS (

    SELECT 
        question, 
        yes_ans, 
        no_ans, 
        na_ans, 
        blank_ans 
    FROM dbo.qrc_maintally 
    WHERE school_id = @SchoolId 

)

    IF yes_ans > no_ans AND yes_ans > na_ans 
    BEGIN
        SET @Final = 'Yes'
    END

    ELSE IF no_ans > yes_ans AND no_ans > na_ans 
    BEGIN
        SET @Final = 'No'
    END

    ELSE IF na_ans > yes_ans AND na_ans > no_ans 
    BEGIN
        SET @Final = 'N/A'
    END

RETURN @Final

END

Answer 1

ALTER FUNCTION [dbo].[fnTally] (@SchoolId nvarchar(50))
    RETURNS nvarchar(3)
AS BEGIN 

    DECLARE @Final nvarchar(3)
    SELECT @Final = CASE 
        WHEN yes_ans > no_ans  AND yes_ans > na_ans THEN 'Yes'
        WHEN no_ans  > yes_ans AND no_ans  > na_ans THEN 'No'
        WHEN na_ans  > yes_ans AND na_ans  > no_ans THEN 'N/A' END
    FROM dbo.qrc_maintally
    WHERE school_id = @SchoolId

Return @Final
End

As you can see, this simplifies the code a lot. It also makes other errors in your code more obvious: you're returning an nvarchar, but declared the function to return an int (corrected in the code above).

Answer 2

You'll need to create local variables for those columns, assign them during the select and use them for your conditional tests.

declare @yes_ans int,
        @no_ans int,
        @na_ans int

SELECT @yes_ans = yes_ans, @no_ans = no_ans, @na_ans = na_ans 
    from dbo.qrc_maintally 
    where school_id = @SchoolId

If @yes_ans > @no_ans and @yes_ans > @na_ans 
begin
Set @Final = 'Yes'
end
-- etc.