I've written code that dynamically builds an sql query based on
various constraint possibilities.
The problem is the code would have been very complex had I not come up
with a dummy constraint as a kind of place holder in the statement.
To avoid complex logic that determines if there was another constraint
before any other constraint and hence the need to add, say, AND or
not, I came up with a dummy constraint so that every subsequent
constraint will begin with AND. There's no need to determine whether
to add AND or not. This makes the coding much simpler because all
that needs to be done is ask if a certain condition exists then add
the constraint along with AND in front every time.
So what I did was create the statement like this:
SELECT elapsed_time AS ET from Table1 WHERE 1 > 0 AND 1stConstraint
AND 2nd Constraint and so on.
See if the 1 > 0 condition were not there it would be necessary to
first determine the first actual contraint and not add AND in front of
it and then add the rest with ANDs in front of every one.
I should add that the user does not have to select any constraint and
that's the problem. I need to stick that WHERE 1>0 in there so that
there doesn't need to be a determination of which other, if any,
constraints are selected.
Even if my explanation above is not well understood, believe me the
front-end coding is much easier this way.
My question is does the 1 > 0 conditional check present the database
with any significant overhead or as far was dummy constraints go is
this as good as any other?
-David
