Imply bit with constant 1 or 0 in SQL Server

Question

Is it possible to express 1 or 0 as a bit when used as a field value in a select statement?

e.g.

In this case statement (which is part of a select statement) ICourseBased is of type int.

case 
when FC.CourseId is not null then 1
else 0
end
as IsCoursedBased

To get it to be a bit type I have to cast both values.

case 
when FC.CourseId is not null then cast(1 as bit)
else cast(0 as bit)
end
as IsCoursedBased

Is there a short hand way of expressing the values as bit type without having to cast every time?

(I'm using MS SQL Server 2005)

Answer 1

Slightly more condensed than gbn's:

Assuming CourseId is non-zero

CAST (COALESCE(FC.CourseId, 0) AS Bit)

COALESCE is like an ISNULL(), but returns the first non-Null.

A Non-Zero CourseId will get type-cast to a 1, while a null CourseId will cause COALESCE to return the next value, 0

Answer 2

You might add the second snippet as a field definition for ICourseBased in a view.

DECLARE VIEW MyView
AS
  SELECT
  case 
  when FC.CourseId is not null then cast(1 as bit)
  else cast(0 as bit)
  end
  as IsCoursedBased
  ...

SELECT ICourseBased FROM MyView