<p>I need to know how to return a default row if no rows exist in a table. What would be the best way to do this? I'm only returning a single column from this particular table to get its value. </p>

<p>Edit: This would be SQL Server. </p>

Do you want to return a full row?  Does the default row need to have default values or can it be an empty row?  Do you want the default row to have the same column structure as the table in question?
Depending on your requirements, you might do something like this:
1)  run the query and put results in a temp table (or table variable)
2)  check to see if the temp table has results
3)  if not, return an empty row by performing a select statement similar to this (in SQL Server):
```
```
select '' as columnA, '' as columnB, '' as columnC from #tempTable
```
```
Where columnA, columnB and columnC are your actual column names.