How can I override rows from another table? - sql

Question

I have two tables:
TableA
ID Name
-- ----
1 aaa
2 bbb
3 ccc
4 ddd
TableB
ID Name
-- --------
3 WWXXYYZZ
I want to select from both tables, but skip the rows which exist in TableB. The result should look like this:
ID Name
-- --------
1 aaa
2 bbb
3 WWXXYYZZ
4 ddd
I have tried union and join but did not figure out how to achieve this.
-- Did not work
select *
from TableA
union
select *
from TableB
-- Did not work
select *
from
(
select *
from TableA
) x
join
(
select *
from TableB
) y
on x.ID = y.ID

Answer 1

You could left join b on to a, and use coalesce to prefer b's rows:
SELECT a.id, COALESCE(b.name, a.name) AS name
FROM a
LEFT JOIN b ON a.id = b.id

Answer 2

You can do:
select a.id, coalesce(b.name, a.name)
from a left join b on a.id = b.id

Answer 3

One method is union all:
select b.*
from b
union all
select a.*
from a
where not exists (select 1 from a where a.id = b.id);
You can also choose from a and override with values from b:
select a.id, coalesce(b.name, a.name) as name
from a left join
b
on a.id = b.id;

Answer 4

A more complex method uses ROW_NUMBER which might be necessary if your query is significantly more complex than shown. It also handled the case where a row exists in TableB but not TableA (which is not clear from your question).
DECLARE #TableA TABLE (id INT, [Name] VARCHAR(12));
DECLARE #TableB TABLE (id INT, [Name] VARCHAR(12));
INSERT INTO #TableA (id, [Name])
VALUES
(1, 'aaa'),
(2, 'bbb'),
(3, 'ccc'),
(4, 'ddd');
INSERT INTO #TableB (id, [Name])
VALUES
(3, 'WWXXYYZZ'),
(5, 'TTTGGG');
SELECT id, [Name]
FROM (
SELECT id, [Name]
, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY id ORDER BY [Priority] DESC) Rn
FROM (
SELECT id, [Name], 0 [Priority]
FROM #TableA
UNION ALL
SELECT id, [Name], 1 [Priority]
FROM #TableB
) X
) Y
WHERE Rn = 1;
Returns:
1 aaa
2 bbb
3 WWXXYYZZ
4 ddd
5 TTTGGG