[thechat] Anybody Remember IIF?

[rudy]

hey you lot

sorry for the delay adding to this thread but i'm not
a regular subscriber to this list

IIf is alive and well and living as a microsoft access function

i think it's also a visual basic function because the access help 
file on IIf is a visual basic reference page

here's the basic syntax --

     IIf(expr, truepart, falsepart)

    expr = expression you want to evaluate.
    truepart = value or expression returned if expr is True.
    falsepart = value or expression returned if expr is False.

okay, now comes microsoft at its very best --
  
   IIf always evaluates both truepart and falsepart, even 
   though it returns only one of them. Because of this, you 
   should watch for undesirable side effects. For example, 
   if evaluating falsepart results in a division by zero error, 
   an error occurs even if expr is True.


i have always felt that if/else and case constructs were
invaluable in sql

here's an example of the microsoft access IIf function
used recursivelly --

SELECT Iif(Isnull(Mark),'?',
           Iif(Mark>=80,'A',
               Iif(Mark>=70,'B',
                   Iif(Mark>=60,'C',
                       Iif(Mark>=50,'D','F')))))
         AS Grade 


rudy