PL/SQL Function for If Statement

[saw15]

Good day ..

Would like a little assistance on writting a function. In one table, I need to look at 5 seperate columns labeled:
allowed, denied, copay, hold, misc.

Basically I need to create a function that will determine which column is filled and return that result. One of the columns will always be filled. I would like to do something like:

I would think that you would use a nested If statement, but just not sure how to do it in PL/SQL. Any help is appreciated.

 

[lewisp]

SELECT allowed, denied, copay, hold, misc
INTO a,d,c,h,m
FROM....

Return Nvl(a, Nvl(d, Nvl(c, Nvl(h,m))));

 

[sem]

nvl(allowed,nvl(denied,nvl(copay, nvl(hold, misc))))

 

[stefanhei]

If your're using Oracle 9i:
SELECT COALSECE(allowed,denied,copay,hold,misc) FROM...

Stefan