Let's say I have 20 columns in a table and I run a manual query like:
SELECT *
FROM [TABLE]
WHERE [PRODUCT] LIKE '%KRABBY PADDY%'
After viewing the results, I realize I only need 10 of those columns. Is there a quick way to list out the 10 columns you want, something like right clicking on the wild card and somehow selecting the columns you want?
Right clicking the * and selecting the columns doesn't sound terribly fast either.
You can use SSMS to go to the table, and drag the "Columns":
You'll get every column, and then you can keep the ones you want:
As far as I know you can't do exactly what you are asking for, but in SQL Server Management Studio you can obtain the SELECT statement with all the columns of a table by right-clicking he table on the object explorer an select the options:
script table as --> SELECT to --> Clipboard
Once you have this SELECT is prety easy to eliminate the columns you don't need on the SELECT
Another SSMS solution:
Highlight the query.
Right click it, choose "Design Query In Editor".
The query designer will automatically expand the * to a column list.
As you tick and untick the columns you want in the top panel, the text of the query in the bottom panel will change to match.
Hit "OK" and it'll write the new query over the old text in the editor.
I've not used this much myself (I generally just type) but it seems to work fine for simple queries.
Related
Maybe that stupid question, but I don't know how to describe my problem to uncle google.
I have two simple tables with 3 rows: ID, Name, SomeVal;
Now I want update them with merge, and that's simple:
MERGE Locations T
USING Locations_2 S ON T.ID=S.ID
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE
SET
T.Name=S.Name,
T.SomeVal=S.SomeVal;
Ok, that works, but I wrote every column name by hand. So, when I want to update for example table with 30 columns, writing everything by hand will be painful. So, is there any option to update every column in the table no matter how many columns it has?
I tried "*". It is UPDATE SET T.*=S.*, and that didn't work.
What I normally do when I want to be time efficient (or lazy, depending on your view) is this:
Run this command:
sp_help TableName;
Copy/paste the first column, then hold down Alt whilst dragging the mouse cursor in front of the column names. This way I can then type one comma in front of all the fields. Then I do the same after the field name except with an = sign.
That's the only shortcut I can think to help you, and has saved me hours of typing over the years.
No. Merge statements are very verbose. You can hack a shortcut by scripting your table as CREATE, copy the column names using SHIFT + ALT to select a large swath of them, then paste them into the MERGE query, hit space, add the = sign, then paste again.
The statement is one direction, (i.e., you can't update S with T; only T can be updated) so you don't strictly need to provide the source/destination alias for each column.
I am trying to import data from a SQL server into power BI. There is a section on the advanced options called SQL statement.
I know that the SQL statement for what I require is:
Select TOP 1000 * from [Table]
How do I write this in the Power Bi at the time of data source / import. So that it runs this statement for each of the tables I plan to import?
You can try this at the time of importing SQL Server data.
After loading data you can keep and remove rows using keep rows as shown below
If all the tables you want are on the same database, then you can navigate to that database as the first step in your query.
From there, filter down to select just the tables you want.
(You can see the preview of the cell selected in the bottom pane.)
Now that you've got the tables you want, you can apply a TopN function to the entire column (I chose top 3).
Table.TransformColumns(#"Filtered Rows",{{"Data", each Table.FirstN(_,3), type table}})
A quick way to add this step is to do a transformation on a text column and then just replace the column and the function applied. For example, if you format the Schema column to UPPERCASE using the GUI, it will add the step
Table.TransformColumns(#"Filtered Rows",{{"Schema", Text.Upper, type text}})
from which you can swap out the column, function, and type for what you actually want (see previous).
At this point, your tables are all trimmed to the top N rows and you can load each one to its own query by right-clicking on the table cell and choosing "Add as New Query". Alternatively, you can right-click on the Database query in the left pane (see the first image) and choose "Reference". This creates a new query from which you can simply click on the Table you want and it will return just that one.
Note: The former method will automatically name the new query after the table you expanded but the latter would work better if you wanted to change your N value since it doesn't recreate the whole query.
Either way, if you right-click on the last applied step in each of these new tables, you can choose "View Native Query" and you can see that the statement passed back to the server is a simple select top 3.
select top 3
[$Table].[DealSpecificKey] as [DealSpecificKey],
[$Table].[DateInvestment] as [DateInvestment],
[$Table].[DateInvestmentKey] as [DateInvestmentKey],
[$Table].[DateRedemption] as [DateRedemption],
[$Table].[DateRedemptionKey] as [DateRedemptionKey]
from [dbo].[AuxDaysInvested] as [$Table]
I've been searching the internet for hours trying to figure out if the following is even possible:
To choose the AS400 query records directly from Excel.
I haven't found any solution or description of how this could be achieved, which makes me guess that it's simply not possible. However, I haven't seen anyone confirm that it is impossible.
So my question is: Is this possible? And if it is, could you point me in the right direction in order for me to start learning how to do it?
I know its possible to run a query from Excel, and then adding parameters via SQL statements, but in my case, this presents several problems that could be avoided by choosing the records before the query is executed.
Example:
I have a query with a column (lets call it ColVal) that can hold the values 1 and/or 2. In the AS400 program under the menu "Work with queries" and then "Choose records" I can specify which records the query should contain when it has run based on the value in ColVal. This means i can get three different situations (A, B and C) when i run the query:
A) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal is 1
B) The query only contains records where the value in ColVal is 2
C) The query contains records where the value in ColVal is either 1 or 2
The goal is to be able to choose which situation I want from Excel in order to circumvent opening and using the AS400 program.
However, using situation C and then editing the query in Excel with an SQL statement to mimic situation A or B is not an option, as this means the query still contains undesired records.
This whole thing boils down to the following: Is it even possible to run the query from Excel essentially changing the data it contains and not just outputting it to excel? If this is possible, is it then possible to pass a parameter to the AS400 system and use it to create situation A, B or C?
I hope this example makes sense.
Edit - New example
Say i have different customers A and B. I can open the AS400 program and run a query in which i have specified that I only want data on customer A. I can then open Excel and use filters (as Hambone described) on the query to determine which records I want to output. However, if I want to work with data from customer B, I have to open the AS400 again and run the query with different parameters. I would like to be able to "change" my dataset from customer A to B from Excel, without having to include both in my recordset and then filter out one of them.
I imagined this is doable if you could pass a parameter to the AS400. The AS400 then runs the query using this parameter as the criteria for which records should be stored in the query. This means that if the parameter is Customer B, then there is no way to acces data from customer A, without running the query through AS400 again.
Any ideas are greatly appreciated :)
Follow up to my comment, here is a quick primer on how to run an ODBC query directly in MS Excel using Microsoft Query. This is very different than Power Query, which you referenced, in that MS Query is standard with Excel -- it's not a plug-in. This is relevant because it means everyone has it. If you are deploying a solution to others, that's an important consideration.
To start an MS Query in Excel, go to the data tab, select "From Other Sources" -> "Microsoft Query."
A list of your ODBC connections will come up. Pick the one that you want and select "OK."
It may or may not ask you for a login (depending on which ODBC connection you use and how its configured).
The next part is important. MS Query is going to try to have you use its builder to create the query. If you have the SQL, skip this part. It's horrible. Click "Cancel" on the query wizard, and then click the "SQL" button to enter your own SQL. If you can, make sure the result set is small (like use where 1 = 2 in the query).
When MS Query returns results, click the button next to the SQL Button to have it return the results to the spreadsheet. It looks like a little door.
From here, any time you want to refresh the query, you can simply right-click the data table in Excel and select "refresh." Alternatively you can go to the data tab on the ribbon and select "Refresh."
By the way if you have linked pivot tables and charts, the "Refresh All" option will refresh those as well, in the correct order.
To edit your query at any time, right-click on the table in Excel, go to Table-External Data Properties:
Then Click on the Connection Properties icon (highlighted below)
Click on the second tab (Definition) and edit the SQL Directly.
Parameters can be declared simply by inserting a bare "?" in place of your literal.
In other words, if your query looks like this:
select *
from users
where user_id = 'hambone'
Just change it to:
select *
from users
where user_id = ?
Excel will prompt you for a user id before it runs the query. From here, you also have the option of putting the parameter value in a cell within the spreadsheet and having the query read it from there. You'll see these when you right-click the table and go to the "Parameters" menu option.
Let me know if this helps or is unclear.
-- EDIT 7/23/2018 --
To follow up on your latest edit, it is possible to handle the scenario you describe, where you want to be able to filter on a value, or if none is given, then not have a filter. You see this a lot when you present multiple filter options to the user and you want a blank to mean "no filter," which is obviously counter to the way SQL works.
However, you can hack SQL to still make it work:
select * from activities
where
(activity = ? or ? is null) and
(energy = ? or ? is null)
In this example you have to declare four parameters instead of two, two for each.
You might also have to play with datatypes, depending on the RDBMS (for example for numerics you might have to say ? = 0 instead of ? is null or even ? = '' for text).
Here is a working example where a single filter was applied on the query above and you can clearly see the second one did not have an impact.
Yes it's possible. You need to use an ODBC driver to connect to the AS400 and retrieve the data. The driver and documentation are Here
My problem is that Intellisense does not provide complete auto suggest for the columns that I have in my tables .
Here is an example:
As you can see on SSMS it does give me auto suggest for my tables, but does not for columns. I have read couple articles about solving some Intellisense issues, but nothing helped. Here is things I tried described in this article: http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2591/troubleshooting-intellisense-in-sql-server-management-studio-2012/
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you for your time!
IntelliSense can't predict which table you're going to select from, and will wait until you have at least one table in the FROM clause, and probably only until you specify an alias. before populating the columns in the case of a join or other multi-table query.
There's a good reason for this. Imagine if you have CustomerID or InvoiceID in 20 different tables in your database. Should it list this 20 times? Which one should you pick? Do you really want all the columns in your entire database in a drop-down list? In a lot of scenarios this will be a very long list. And not pretty either, in things like SharePoint, NAV Dynamics, etc.
If you're not happy with the way the native IntelliSense works, there are 3rd party tools that might do what you want, but I'm not sure what you want will actually help you work any better.
First, that's because at the time of the screenshot SSMS does not know from what object you are selecting. In other words, it cannot guess what columns you're interested in when there is not a from clause in your select statement. If you try to type in the columns in the following select statement...
select from dbo.Invoices
you will see that SSMS will start to pick up your columns because you have already specified a from clause, so SSMS knows how to suggest you column names...because there is a table specified in the from clause
This is mainly occurs when you add any table in the Database OR Add any Column in the Table.
This is the known issue of the SQL Server 2012. You need to refresh the Cache for that.
You can achieve using 2 ways..
1) You can Refresh the Local Cache of the IntelliSense.
Open New Query window and Navigate to following menu.
Edit > IntelliSense > Refresh Local Cache
Shortcut key for this is (Ctrl + Shift + R)
2) ReConnect Your Database.
I have the following query (sample)
SELECT *
FROM Table_1 1 INNER JOIN
Table_2 2 ON 1.C1 = 2.C1 INNER JOIN
Table_3 3 ON 2.C2 = 3.C2 INNER JOIN
Table_4 4 ON 3.C3 = 4.C3
The output is of 10+ columns.
When I hover over * (after "SELECT") I get a tooltip with all different column names from those 4 tables.
Is there a way to easily switch from * to those column names instead of typing each one of them after SELECT?
Thank you
I'm assuming you're working in Management Studio. If so, go to the Object Explorer and open up your Table. Left click on the Columns folder and drag it to your query window. All the columns for that table will be listed.
From the Object Explorer of SQL Server Management Studio, you can expand a table (so you see the Columns, Keys, Indexes, etc folder breakdown). Dragging the Columns folder to your query window will give you a comma separated list of the column names.
Please note: If there are duplicate column names among your four tables, you will have to properly quantify these columns properly.
I see your query references 4 tables.
To avoid having to locate and expand the 4 different objects in object explorer you can also select the query text in management studio, right click and choose "Design Query in Editor" then copy the column names out of the expanded list
Copying the column names rather than simply pressing OK avoids the designer messing up your formatting and possibly your query as well.
Expanding wildcards is part of the functionality of Redgate SQL Prompt if you have this need frequently.
If you use DataGrip for writing SQL, you can press Alt+Enter -> Expand column list