SQL Server 2012 writing duplicate entries into table from CTE - sql

Question

So I am writing to a table the output from a few sequential CTEs, and when I fixed a join in one of the CTEs from an inner to a left join, there are now duplicated entries in the Table that do not show up if I just run the query without the insert.
Is there something I need to understanding about creating and inserting into a table with regards to joins in a CTE?
EDIT
create table MYTABLE
(
ID int,
Date smalldatetime,
Val1 int,
Val2 int
)
; with cte1 as (
select
a.ID,
a.Date,
a.Val1,
b.Val2
from table1 a
left join table2 b
on a.ID = b.ID
and a.Date = b.Date
)
insert into MYTABLE
(ID, Date, Val1, Val2)
select * from cte1
When creating the table on the inner join there is no problem with duplicates; on the left join (as shown above), rows where there are NULLs appear to be duplicated many times.

Answer 1

Check your right table (table2) my guess is that there are more than one record that have the same ID and Date.
If that is the case, the records are not technically duplicated if you do a select all (*) in the CTE, you will see the other fields that have changed.
If you do not care about the rest of the fields being different though, just try adding a Row_Number to your CTE and select where the Row_Number = 1 outside of the CTE.
For Instance:
create table MYTABLE
(
ID int,
Date smalldatetime,
Val1 int,
Val2 int
)
; with cte1 as (
select
a.ID,
a.Date,
a.Val1,
b.Val2
Rnum = ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY a.ID, a.Date, a.Val1, a.Val2 ORDER BY ID)
from table1 a
left join table2 b
on a.ID = b.ID
and a.Date = b.Date
)
insert into MYTABLE
(ID, Date, Val1, Val2)
select ID, Date, Val1, Val2 from cte1
where Rnum = 1
The row_number acts as a "distinct" and depending on what combination of fields you want to not duplicate, you will get different results.
For instance, if you do not want the IDs to duplicate, then
Rnum = ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY a.ID ORDER BY ID)
if you do not care about the IDs duplicating, but you do not want the same ID on the same date, then
Rnum = ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY a.ID, a.Date ORDER BY ID)
etc.... just depends on your selection criteria of what you do not want to duplicate.
Hope this helps