I'm new to SQL Server programming, so this may or may not be a stupid question.
So, first I do not know what my input table is (my task is supposed to work with ANY table).
Second, I get the column names using sp_help and then I select only that column into another table. Now I need the rows from COLUMN_NAME to be the names of god knows how many columns into some new table.
I tried something using PIVOT, but I can't seem to make it work.
It sounds like you want to access the metadata tables. Something like this may put you in the right direction:
insert into column_name(name)
select column_name
from information_schema.columns
where table_name = XXX <----- YOUR TABLE GOES HERE
Related
My overall goal is to create new tables by selecting columns in existing tables with certain patterns/tags in their column names. This is in SQL Server.
For example, I have a common need to get all contact information out of a company table, and into its own contact table.
I haven't been able to find a programmatic approach in SQL to express excluding columns from a SELECT statement based on string.
When looking to options like the COL_NAME function, those require an ID arg, which kills that option for me.
Wishing there was something built in that could work like the following:
SELECT *
FROM TABLE
WHERE COL_NAME() LIKE 'FLAG%'
Any ideas? Open to anything! Thanks!!
One trick could be to firstly using the following code to get the column names you desire:
select * from information_schema.columns
where table_name='tbl' and column_name like 'FLAG%'
Then concatenate them into a comma-delimited string and finally create a dynamic sql query using the created string as the column names.
select COLUMN_NAME
from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
where TABLE_NAME='Submenu';
The above query gave all column names in Submenu table but I want only three column names of Submenu table.
Is there any way to get column names?
I assumed this is SQL Server, so the below queries might not work on other RDBMS's).
If your question is how to find only the column names you need (presuming you know in advance which ones those are), you would have to do something like this:
SELECT
COLUMN_NAME
FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE
TABLE_NAME='Submenu'
AND COLUMN_NAME IN ('Column1', 'Column2', 'Column3')
At this moment, you basically are requesting a list of any column within your table, without any restrictions whatsoever.
Alternatively, if you're looking only for the first three column names, this would work:
SELECT TOP 3
COLUMN_NAME
FROM
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE
TABLE_NAME='Submenu'
ORDER BY
ORDERINAL_POSITION
In the latter case, you will have to determine how you want to sort the column names though (either by using something like ORDER BY COLUMN_NAME, in case you want them listed alphabetically, or ORDER BY ORDERINAL_POSITION in case you're trying to get them in the order they appear in the table).
If this is not what you meant, please elaborate on what you are trying to achieve.
SELECT TOP 3 COLUMN_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Submenu';
As easy as that!
I'm going through all tables in a database trying to determine which tables are old (have not been altered in a long time). I've been going through and flagging all tables with old DTS's as "old"
Is there a more efficient way to do this? Can I run a statement that scans all tables in a database for date-timestamp fields and then looks at the most recent ones?
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!
You can use the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS view to retrieve all the tables having the timestamp column (assuming the column name is known and not used for other columns).
Use these to generate Dynamic SQL of the form
SELECT COUNT(*) ,#TableName FROM #TableName WHERE #TimeStampColumn < #TimestampToCheck
The tables where count(*) is 0 are the ones you need to look at
I would do something like this:
Show a COUNT(*) of rows written in the last year... if you get 0, you know the table isn't in use.
Use the information_schema to get the columns/tables.
SELECT 'SELECT COUNT(*) AS ['+TABLE_NAME+'] FROM ['+TABLE_CATALOG+'].['+TABLE_SCHEMA+'].['+TABLE_NAME+'] WHERE '+COLUMN_NAME+' > DATEADD(YY,-1,CONVERT(DATETIME,FLOOR(CONVERT(FLOAT,GETDATE()))))'
-- SELECT *
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE DATA_TYPE='DATETIME'
--AND (COLUMN_DEFAULT='(getdate())' OR COLUMN_DEFAULT='CURRENT_TIMESTAMP')
You can add the last line in, if you only want columns with a default value.
Then take the output, copy to a new window, and run it!
I'm using Oracle DB and I would like to write a SQL query that I could then call with JDBC. I'm not very familiar with SQL so if someone can help me, that could be great ! Here is the problem. I have a table MY_TABLE wich contains a list of another tables, and I would like to keep only the nonempty tables and those that their names start by a particular string.
The query I wrote is the following :
select TABLE_NAME
from MY_TABLE
where TABLE_NAME like '%myString%'
and (select count(*) from TABLE_NAME where rownum=1)<>0
order by TABLE_NAME;`
The problem comes from the second SELECT, but I don't know how can I do to use the TABLE_NAME value.
Does someone have an idea ?
Thanks.
[Added from comments]
Actually, I need to test the V$ views contained in the ALL_CATALOG table. But if I can find another table where all these views are contained too and with a NUM_ROWS column too, it would be perfect !
Standard versions of SQL do not allow you to replace 'structural elements' of the query, such as table name or column name, with variable values or place-holders.
There are a few ways to approach this.
Generate a separate SQL statement for each table name listed in MY_TABLE, and execute each in turn. Brute force, but effective.
Interrogate the system catalog directly.
Investigate whether there are JDBC metadata operations that allow you to find out about the number of rows in a table without being tied to the system catalog of the specific DBMS you are using.
Can you use oracle view USER_TABLES? then query will be much easier
select TABLE_NAME
from USER_TABLES
where TABLE_NAME like '%myString%'
and Num_ROWS > 0
order by TABLE_NAME;`
I have a table which has essentially boolean values in a legacy database. The column names are stored as string values in another table so I need to match the column names of one table to a string value in another table. I know there has to be a way to do this directly with SQL in SQL Server but it is beyond me.
My initial thought was to use PIVOT but it is not enabled by default and enabling it would likely be a difficult process with pushing that change to the Production database. I would prefer to use what is enabled by default.
I am considering using COALESCE to translate the boolean value to the string that value that I need. This will be a manual process.
I think I will also use a table variable to insert the results of the first query into that variable and use those results to do the second query. I still have the problem that the columns are on a single row so I wish I could easily pivot the values to put the column names in the result set as strings. But if I could easily do that I could easily write the query with a sub-select.
Any tips are welcome.
Checkout Sysobjects and SysColumns in SQL Server. They are 2 SQL tables that gives you the names of the tables in your DB and the names of the columns that go with that table.
The system view INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS will also give you what you want.
You can build a SQL string and then execute that string as a query. Not the prettiest by any means but I think it would work the way you want it to. You would just use a cursor or while loop to build the string.
If you're comfortable with .Net you could just write your own stored proc in your language of choice and manipulate the data in code instead.
Heres a link to get started
CLR Stored Procedures
I'm not quite sure I understand how your design is currently put together (could you post an example?), but the information_schema.columns view will give you a table containing all the column names as string values. If you join your second table against that I think you'll probably get what you need.
For Example, i have a table STATEtbl having 3 columns and i want to get all the column names of this table as ROW values... i use the below query
Select SC.name as Columns from Syscolumns SC
Join Sysobjects SO On SC.id = SO.Id
where Object_name(SO.Id) = 'STATEtbl'
Result of the query:
Columns
--------
State
StateCode
StateFullName