RAISERROR within Case statement

Question

Can you not raise errors within a case statement in T-SQL? I always have problems with SQL case statements :/

    begin try
    declare @i int 
    --set @i = (select COUNT(1) from table_name)

    select Item_Num =
        CASE (select COUNT(1) from table_name)
            when 1 then (select Item_Num from table_name)
            when 0 then (raiserror('No records in database', 0, 0))
            ELSE (raiserror('Multiple records in database', 0, 0))
        END
    from table_name

    end try
    begin catch
        declare @errormsg nvarchar(1024),
                @severity int,
                @errorstate int;

        select @errormsg = error_message(),
                @severity = error_severity(),
                @errorstate = error_state();

        raiserror(@errormsg, @severity, @errorstate);
    end catch

Answer 1

Think of Case/When as operating on a single piece of data. If you think of it this way, a lot of your problems will go away.

If/Then is used to control the flow of logic.

Something like this should work for you.

declare @i int 
set @i = (select COUNT(1) from table_name)

If @i = 1
  Begin
    Print "1 row"
  End
Else If @i = 0
  Begin
    Print "no rows"
  End
Else
  Begin
    Print "too many rows"
  End