Combining four tables in SQL Server - sql

Question

I have four tables Table A, Table B, Table C and Table D. The schema of all four tables are identical. I need to union these four tables in the following way:
If a record is present in Table A then that is considered in the output table.
If a record is present in Table B then it is considered in the output table ONLY if it is not present in Table A.
If a record is present in Table C then it is considered ONLY if it is not present in Table A and Table B.
If a record is present in Table D then it is considered ONLY if it is not present in Table A, Table B, and Table C.
Note -
Every table has a column which identifies the table itself for every record (I don't know if this is of any importance)
Records are identified based on a particular column - Column X which is not unique even within each table

Answer 1

You could do something like (only two cases shown but you should see how to extend this)
WITH CTE1 AS
(
SELECT 't1' as Source, X, Y
FROM t1
UNION ALL
SELECT 't2' as Source, X, Y
FROM t2
), CTE2 AS
(
SELECT *,
RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY X
ORDER BY CASE Source
WHEN 't1' THEN 1
WHEN 't2' THEN 2
END) As RN
FROM CTE1
)
SELECT X,Y
FROM CTE2
WHERE RN=1

Answer 2

I would be inclined to do this using not exists:
select a.*
from a
union all
select b.*
from b
where not exists (select 1 from a where a.x = b.x)
union all
select c.*
from c
where not exists (select 1 from a where a.x = c.x) and
not exists (select 1 from b where b.x = c.x)
union all
select d.*
from d
where not exists (select 1 from a where a.x = d.x) and
not exists (select 1 from b where b.x = d.x) and
not exists (select 1 from c where c.x = d.x);
If you have an index on the x column in each table, then this should be the fastest method.

Answer 3

This will work as long as there are no NULL columns, or if columns for a record that exists in table with higher precedence are NULL you can assume the same column will NULL in tables with lower precedence.
SELECT coalesce(a.column1, b.column1, c.column1, d.column1) column1
,coalesce(a.column2, b.column2, c.column2, d.column2) column2
,coalesce(a.column3, b.column3, c.column3, d.column3) column3
--...
,coalesce(a.columnN, b.columnN, c.columnN, d.columnN) columnN
FROM TableA a
FULL JOIN TableB b on b.ColumnX = a.ColumnX
FULL JOIN TableC c on c.ColumnX = a.ColumnX or c.ColumnX = b.ColumnX
FULL JOIN TableD d on d.ColumnX = a.ColumnX or d.ColumnX = b.ColumnX or d.ColumnX = c.ColumnX
If the NULL values matter, you can switch to a more-complicated (and likely slower) CASE version:
CASE WHEN a.columnX IS NOT NULL THEN a.column1
WHEN b.columnX IS NOT NULL THEN b.column1
WHEN c.columnX IS NOT NULL THEN c.column1
WHEN d.columnX IS NOT NULL THEN d.column1 END column1
Of course, you can mix and match, so columns that are not nullable can use the former syntax, and columns where NULL values matter use the latter.
Hopefully the purpose of this is to fix the broken schema and put this data all in the same table, where it belongs.

Answer 4

This might seem stupid, but if, by any chance, you can leave out the table-identifying column and you also want to eliminate duplicate records (from within one table) too then the most straightforward answer would be
select <all columns without table identifier> from tableA
union
select <all columns without table identifier> from tableB
union
select <all columns without table identifier> from tableC
...
This is exactly, what union was designed to do: add rows only if they do not already exist before.