Find list of values in list of values - sql

Question

I'm trying to write a sql with a where clause, that checks if any element in a list is in another list. Is there a shorter way to accomplish this rather than check each member of the first list?
SELECT * from FOO
WHERE FOO.A IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19') OR
FOO.B IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19') OR
FOO.C IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19') OR
FOO.D IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19') OR
FOO.E IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19') OR
FOO.F IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19')
That is the simplified sql.
Was trying not to muddy waters too much, but since you ask:
Ultimately what I am trying to do here is, select rows from FOO, that has columns fulfilling various criteria. These criteria are stored in a second table (call it BAR), mainly db, name, type must match and flag must be 1. Was planning to build the IN list from BAR, comparing them with column names in INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS containing FOO
FOO:
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+-------+
| DB | Name | Type | Col1 | Col2 | Col3 |
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+-------+
| 4 | AC1 | LO | 1 | 10 | 2 |
| 4 | AC1 | HI | 2 | 20 | 4 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI-HI | 11 | 5 | 2 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI | 22 | 10 | 4 |
| 1 | DC2 | LO | 33 | 15 | 6 |
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+-------+
BAR:
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+
| DB | Name | Type | Field | Flag |
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col1 | 1 |
| 4 | AC1 | HI | Col1 | 1 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI-HI | Col1 | 1 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI | Col1 | 1 |
| 1 | DC2 | LO | Col1 | 1 |
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col2 | 0 |
| 4 | AC1 | HI | Col2 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | LO | Col2 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI-HI | Col2 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI | Col2 | 0 |
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col3 | 0 |
| 4 | AC1 | HI | Col3 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | LO | Col3 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI-HI | Col3 | 0 |
| 1 | DC2 | HI | Col3 | 0 |
+--------+--------+---------+---------+--------+

Answer 1

On first examination, it would seem your schema is not appropriate for the type of query you're performing. It seems like you would want a FOOVAL table with a type and a value then you're query simply becomes:
CREATE TABLE FOOVAL
{
ID int, -- References FOO.ID
TYPE char, -- A, B, C, D, E, F
VAL int
}
SELECT * FROM FOO WHERE FOO.ID IN
(SELECT DISTINCT FOOVAL.ID WHERE FOOVAL.VAL IN ('2','3', '5', '7','11','13','17','19'))

Answer 2

Your method probably performs the best. Here is an alternative that only requires creating the list once. It uses a CTE to create a list of the values and then an exists clause to check whether any values match:
with vals as (
select '2' as p union all
select '3' union all
select '5' union all
select '7' union all
select '11' union all
select '13' union all
select '17' union all
select '19'
)
select *
from foo
where exists (select 1 from vals where vals.p in (foo.A, foo.B, foo.C, foo.D, foo.E, foo.F))
If you are using a database that doesn't support CTEs, you can just put the code in the where clause:
select 8
from foo
where exists (select 1
from (select '2' as p union all
select '3' union all
select '5' union all
select '7' union all
select '11' union all
select '13' union all
select '17' union all
select '19'
) t
where vals.p in (foo.A, foo.B, foo.C, foo.D, foo.E, foo.F)
)
If you are using Oracle, then you need to add from dual in the statements after the string constants. Otherwise, I think one or the other should work in any SQL database.

Answer 3

While it is not exactly clear what you want to do with the data, since you are using SQL Server my suggestion would be to use the UNPIVOT function to turn the col1, col2 and col3 columns into rows which will make it easier to filter the data:
select db, name, type, col, value
from foo
unpivot
(
value
for col in (Col1, Col2, Col3)
) unpiv;
See SQL Fiddle with Demo. This gives the data in the following format:
| DB | NAME | TYPE | COL | VALUE |
------------------------------------
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col1 | 1 |
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col2 | 10 |
| 4 | AC1 | LO | Col3 | 2 |
| 4 | AC1 | HI | Col1 | 2 |
Once the is in the row format, it should be significantly easier to apply any filters or even join to your BAR table.