What's wrong with my CASE?

Question

CASE WHEN table1.text IS NULL THEN table2.numbers ELSE table1.text END AS newcolumn

When running this code I keep getting this error: ERROR: CASE types character varying and integer cannot be matched

You would think that this would not cause problems since I'm creating a new column within my query. I'd also like to point out that I'm using an old version of PostgreSQL if that helps.

Answer 1

CASE WHEN table1.text IS NULL THEN table2.numbers::text ELSE table1.text END AS newcolumn

Answer 2

Problem is you are trying to add table1.text and table2.numbers into a single column. These two columns are two diff data types. try following

CASE WHEN table1.text IS NULL THEN CAST(table2.numbers AS VARCHAR(50)) ELSE table1.text END AS newcolumn