EC
20000
PostgreSQLERRORNotableCase Not FoundHIGH confidence

case not found

What this means

SQLSTATE 20000 is raised when a PL/pgSQL CASE statement does not find a matching WHEN clause and no ELSE clause is provided. The statement terminates with an error.

Why it happens
  1. 1PL/pgSQL CASE statement with no matching WHEN clause and no ELSE
  2. 2A searched CASE expression encounters a value not covered by any WHEN
How to reproduce

CASE statement with no ELSE for an unhandled value.

trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
DO $
DECLARE v INT := 99;
BEGIN
  CASE v
    WHEN 1 THEN RAISE NOTICE 'one';
    WHEN 2 THEN RAISE NOTICE 'two';
    -- no ELSE, 99 not covered
  END CASE;
END $;

expected output

ERROR:  case not found
HINT:  CASE statement is missing ELSE part.

Fix 1

Add an ELSE clause to the CASE statement

WHEN When the CASE must handle all possible values.

Add an ELSE clause to the CASE statement
CASE v
  WHEN 1 THEN RAISE NOTICE 'one';
  WHEN 2 THEN RAISE NOTICE 'two';
  ELSE RAISE NOTICE 'other: %', v;
END CASE;

Why this works

An ELSE clause provides a fallback for any value not matched by a WHEN, preventing the 20000 error.

Fix 2

Raise a meaningful exception in the ELSE clause

WHEN When an unmatched value represents a programming error.

Raise a meaningful exception in the ELSE clause
ELSE RAISE EXCEPTION 'Unexpected value: %', v USING ERRCODE = 'P0001';

Why this works

Raising explicitly in ELSE gives a descriptive error rather than the generic 20000.

Sources
Official documentation ↗

Class 20 — Case Not Found

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