Discussion [postgres]: multi-line `WHEN/THEN` clauses in CASE statements

[joelmukuthu]

Currently,

SELECT CASE 
  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
  THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
END;

Is formatted as

SELECT CASE 
  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
END;

Which makes it a bit hard to find the THEN, especially when there are many WHEN clauses. It'd be nice to line-break these, but that introduces a smaller issue when there are multiple WHEN clauses (as WHEN looks very similar to THEN), so perhaps an indented THEN, or a line-break between WHEN clauses?

SELECT CASE 
  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
    THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
    THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
  ELSE foo
END;
-- Or this?
SELECT CASE 
  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
  THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name

  WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
  THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name

  ELSE foo
END;

Worth noting, the WHEN clause could also contain multiple conditions, which would probably need to be indented:

SELECT CASE 
  WHEN 
    looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
    AND another_column_name = 2 
  THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name

  WHEN 
    looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1 
    AND another_column_name = 2 
  THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
END;

-- Currently this are formatted as:
SELECT
  CASE
    WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1
    AND another_column_name = 2 THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
    WHEN looooooooooooooooooong_column_name = 1
    AND another_column_name = 2 THEN another_loooooooooooooong_column_name
  END;

[nene]

Yep, the long WHEN .. THEN .. blocks definitely need to be broken apart.