SQL Server Procedure Parameter List [duplicate] - sql

Question

Say I have the a table with 3 columns : Id, Category, Name.
I would like to query the table that way :
Get me the rows for which
{ Category = "Cat1" AND Name = "ABC" } OR { Category = "Cat2" AND Name = "ABC" } OR { Category = "Cat2" AND Name = "DEF" }
How? Without having to resort to a huge list of WHERE OR
I was thinking of using IN...but is it possible to use that in conjunction with 2 columns?
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can create a temp table
create table #temp (Category varchar(50), Name varchar(50))
insert into #temp values ('Cat1', 'abc'), ('Cat2', 'cde'), ('Cat3', 'eee')
And then join your main table
select * from table1
inner join #temp
on table1.Category = #temp.Category and table1.Name = #temp.Name
If you want to use that approach from the code, you can do that using table parameters.
Define a table type:
CREATE TYPE dbo.ParamTable AS TABLE
( Category varchar(50), Name varchar(50) )
and a stored proc that will read the data:
create procedure GetData(#param dbo.ParamTable READONLY)
AS
select * from table1
inner join #param p
on table1.Category = p.Category and table1.Name = p.Name
Then you can use those from the C# code, for example:
using (var conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=Test2;Integrated Security=True"))
{
conn.Open();
DataTable param = new DataTable();
param.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Category", Type.GetType("System.String")));
param.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Name", Type.GetType("System.String")));
param.Rows.Add(new object[] { "Cat1", "abc" });
using (var command = conn.CreateCommand())
{
command.CommandText = "GetData";
command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
command.Parameters.AddWithValue("#param", param);
using (var reader = command.ExecuteReader())
{
// reading here
}
}
}

Answer 2

#Szymon's answer is the best, but if you absolutely need to do it in one query you can come up with a scheme to concatenate the two columns into one string and join candidate values using the same method. Then you can use IN instead of a bunch of ANDs and ORs.
SELECT *
FROM table
WHERE Category + ':' + Name IN ('Cat1:abc', 'Cat2:cde', 'Cat3:eee')
This has the distinct disadvantage of never being able to take advantage of indexes. But it's good for a quick and dirty solution.

Answer 3

With Sql2008 there is an interesting new clause VALUES in FROM:
select *
from mytable
inner join ( select * from (values('cat1', 'abc'),
'cat2', 'def') as T(cat,name) ) C
on mytable.category = c.cat and mytable.name = c.name

Answer 4

Create temporary table to store the key value pairs. Then query from your main table joinned with temporary table. Not as simple as adding IN(...), but this is the only way I can think and i believe IN(...) is not capable