Find manager in a comma-separated list - sql

Question

I have a Projects table with ID and Responsible manager. The Responsible manager columns has values as John,Jim for Project 1 and Jim,Julie for Project 2.
But if I pass Jim to my stored procedure I should get 2 projects (1,2). This returns no rows because the column is John,Jim but SQL Server is looking for ='Jim':
select distinct ID,Manager from Projects where Manager=#Manager

Answer 1

WHERE ',' + Manager + ',' LIKE '%,Jim,%'
Or I suppose to match your actual code:
WHERE ',' + Manager + ',' LIKE '%,' + #Manager + ',%'
Note that your design is extremely flawed. There is no reason you should be storing names in this table at all, never mind a comma-separated list of any data points. These facts are important on their own, so treat them that way!
CREATE TABLE dbo.Managers
(
ManagerID INT PRIMARY KEY,
Name NVARCHAR(64) NOT NULL UNIQUE, ...
);
CREATE TABLE dbo.Projects
(
ProjectID INT PRIMARY KEY,
Name NVARCHAR(64) NOT NULL UNIQUE, ...
);
CREATE TABLE dbo.ProjectManagers
(
ProjectID INT NOT NULL FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.Projects(ProjectID),
ManagerID INT NOT NULL FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.Managers(ManagerID)
);
Now to set up the sample data you mentioned:
INSERT dbo.Managers(ManagerID, Name)
VALUES(1,N'John'),(2,N'Jim'),(3,N'Julie');
INSERT dbo.Projects(ProjectID, Name)
VALUES(1,N'Project 1'),(2,N'Project 2');
INSERT dbo.ProjectManagers(ProjectID,ManagerID)
VALUES(1,1),(1,2),(2,2),(2,3);
Now to find all the projects Jim is managing:
DECLARE #Manager NVARCHAR(32) = N'Jim';
SELECT p.ProjectID, p.Name
FROM dbo.Projects AS p
INNER JOIN dbo.ProjectManagers AS pm
ON p.ProjectID = pm.ProjectID
INNER JOIN dbo.Managers AS m
ON pm.ManagerID = m.ManagerID
WHERE m.name = #Manager;
Or you can even manually short circuit a bit:
DECLARE #Manager NVARCHAR(32) = N'Jim';
DECLARE #ManagerID INT;
SELECT #ManagerID = ManagerID
FROM dbo.Managers
WHERE Name = #Manager;
SELECT p.ProjectID, p.Name
FROM dbo.Projects AS p
INNER JOIN dbo.ProjectManagers AS pm
ON p.ProjectID = pm.ProjectID
WHERE pm.ManagerID = #ManagerID;
Or even more:
DECLARE #Manager NVARCHAR(32) = N'Jim';
DECLARE #ManagerID INT;
SELECT #ManagerID = ManagerID
FROM dbo.Managers
WHERE Name = #Manager;
SELECT ProjectID, Name
FROM dbo.Projects AS p
WHERE EXISTS
(
SELECT 1
FROM dbo.ProjectManagers AS pm
WHERE pm.ProjectID = p.ProjectID
AND pm.ManagerID = #ManagerID
);
As an aside, I really, really, really hope the DISTINCT in your original query is unnecessary. Do you really have more than one project with the same name and ID?

Answer 2

In a WHERE clasue a = operator looks for an exact match. You can use a LIKE with wildcards for a partial match.
where Manager LIKE '%Jim%'

Answer 3

You may try the following:
SELECT DISTINCT
ID,
Manager
FROM
Projects
WHERE
(
(Manager LIKE #Manager + ',*') OR
(Manager LIKE '*,' + #Manager) OR
(Manager = #Manager)
)
That should cover both names and surnames, while still searching for literal values. Performance can be a problem however, depending on table

Answer 4

please tried with below query
select distinct ID,Manager from Projects where replace('#$#' + Manager + '#$#', ',', '#$#') like '%Jim%'