Better method for concatenating columns into a single column

Question

Please consider the following table that holds address details for people:

DECLARE @tbl TABLE
    (
    userId int IDENTITY(1,1),
    address1 nvarchar(100),
    address2 nvarchar(100),
    address3 nvarchar(100),
    addressTown nvarchar(100),
    addressCounty nvarchar(100),
    addressPostCode nvarchar(10)
    );
INSERT INTO 
    @tbl (address1, address2, address3, addressTown, addressCounty, addressPostCode) 
VALUES 
    ('1 Some Road', 'High Hill', 'Battersea', 'London', NULL, 'SW1 2AB'),
    ('54 Main Street', 'Lowville', NULL, 'Sometown', 'Cumbria', 'AB12 3BA');

SELECT * FROM @tbl;

The output shows this:

userId      address1        address2       address3      addressTown      addressCounty  addressPostCode
----------- --------------- -------------- ------------- ---------------- -------------  ---------------
1           1 Some Road     High Hill      Battersea     London           NULL           SW1 2AB
2           54 Main Street  Lowville       NULL          Sometown         Cumbria        AB12 3BA

However, I'd like to concatenate all of the address fields into a single field for the purpose of this statement, so that the results appear as follows:

userId      Address
----------- --------------------
1           1 Some Road
            High Hill
            Battersea
            London
            SW1 2AB
2           54 Main Street
            Lowville
            Sometown
            Cumbria
            AB12 3BA

Please note that this is NOT the same problem as concatenating rows in a single column (using XML etc)!

I have done this using the following approach, but it seems like a whole lot of code for such a small task:

SELECT
    userId,
    CASE WHEN address1 IS NOT NULL THEN
        address1 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END +
    CASE WHEN address2 IS NOT NULL THEN
        address2 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END +
    CASE WHEN address3 IS NOT NULL THEN
        address3 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END +
    CASE WHEN addressTown IS NOT NULL THEN
        addressTown + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END +
    CASE WHEN addressCounty IS NOT NULL THEN
        addressCounty + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END  +
    CASE WHEN addressPostCode IS NOT NULL THEN
        addressPostCode + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10)
        ELSE ''
    END as [Address]
FROM
    @tbl

Is there a better/faster/more recommended way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can use ISNULL (or COALESCE if you prefer)

 select
      ISNULL(Address1 + char(13) + char(10), '') +
      ISNULL(Address2 + char(13) + char(10), '') + ...
 from @tbl

(Because NULL + something is still NULL)

Answer 2

Thanks to @podiluska's input, here is the final answer that also ensures NULLs are returned if the entire concatenated address is still NULL:

SELECT
    userId,
    NULLIF(ISNULL(address1 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') +
            ISNULL(address2 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') +
            ISNULL(address3 + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') +
            ISNULL(addressTown + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') +
            ISNULL(addressCounty + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), '') +
            ISNULL(addressPostCode + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10), ''), '') as [Address]
FROM
    @tbl;