Split string, copy data into multiple tables - sql

Question

I have the following tables
Table A
RID | Name |Phone |Email |CreatedOn
------------------------------------------------------------
1 | John Smith | 2143556789 |t1#gmail.com |2012-09-01 09:30:00
2 | Jason K Crull | 2347896543 |t2#gmail.com |2012-08-02 10:34:00
Table B
CID| FirstName |LastName |Phone |Email |CreatedOn |Title|Address|City|State
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 | John | Smith |2143556789 |t1#gmail.com |2012-09-01 09:30:00|NULL|NULL|NULL|NULL
12 | Jason | K Crull |2347896543 |t2#gmail.com |2012-08-02 10:34:00|NULL|NULL|NULL|NULL
Table C
RID | CID |IsAuthor|CreatedOn
-----------------------------------------
1 | 11 | 0 |2012-09-01 09:30:00
2 | 12 | 0 |2012-08-02 10:34:00
For every row in "Table A" need to create a row in "Table B" splitting the name into First and Last Name as shown and after creating a row, insert new row into Table C with RID from Table A, CID from Table B, IsAuthor bit Default to 0 and CreatedOn from Table A.The CID is auto incremented. Can anyone help me in achieving this. I am very new to SQL. Thanks!

Answer 1

I believe you're looking for something like this (I left off some fields, but this should get the point across). Main thing to see is the substring and charindex functions which are used to split the name into first name and last names:
insert into tableb (firstname,lastname,phone,email)
select
left(name, charindex(' ',name)-1),
substring(name, charindex(' ', name)+1, len(name)),
phone, email
from tablea ;
insert into tablec
select a.rid, b.cid, 0, a.createdon
from tablea a
inner join tableb b on a.name = b.firstname + ' ' + b.lastname
and a.phone = b.phone and a.email = b.email ;
SQL Fiddle Demo
If there is a concern for the same names, emails, etc, then you're probably going to need to look into using a dreaded cursor and scope_identity(). Hopefully you won't have to go down that route.

Answer 2

Stop thinking about "for every row" and think of it as "a set." Very rarely is it efficient to process anything row-by-row in SQL Server, and very rarely is it beneficial to think in those terms.
--INSERT dbo.TableC(RID, CID, IsAuthor, CreatedOn)
SELECT a.RID, b.CID, IsAuthor = 0, a.CreatedOn
FROM dbo.TableA AS a
INNER JOIN dbo.TableB AS b
ON a.Name = b.FirstName + ' ' b.LastName;
When you believe it is returning the right results, uncomment the INSERT.

Answer 3

To split the name I'd use CharIndex to find the position of the space, then Substring to break the word apart.
For keeping track of which row in TableA the data in TableB came from, I'd just stick a column onto B to record this data, then drop it when you come to inset into table C.
An alternative would be to make CID an identity column on C instead of B, populate C first, then feed that data into TableB when you come to populate that.
if OBJECT_ID('TableA','U') is not null drop table TableA
create table TableA
(
rid int not null identity(1,1) primary key clustered
, Name nvarchar(64)
, Phone nvarchar(16)
, Email nvarchar(256)
, CreatedOn datetime default (getutcdate())
)
if OBJECT_ID('TableB','U') is not null drop table TableB
create table TableB
(
cid int not null identity(1,1) primary key clustered
, FirstName nvarchar(64)
, LastName nvarchar(64)
, Phone nvarchar(16)
, Email nvarchar(256)
, CreatedOn datetime default (getutcdate())
, Title nvarchar(16)
, [Address] nvarchar(256)
, City nvarchar(64)
, [State] nvarchar(64)
)
if OBJECT_ID('TableC','U') is not null drop table TableC
create table TableC
(
rid int primary key clustered
, cid int unique
, IsAuthor bit default(0)
, CreatedOn datetime default (getutcdate())
)
insert TableA (Name, Phone, Email) select 'John Smith', '2143556789', 't1#gmail.com'
insert TableA (Name, Phone, Email) select 'Jason K Crull', '2347896543', 't2#gmail.com'
alter table TableB
add TempRid int
insert TableB(FirstName, LastName, Phone, Email, TempRid)
select case when CHARINDEX(' ', Name) > 0 then SUBSTRING(Name, 1, CHARINDEX(' ', Name)-1) else Name end
, case when CHARINDEX(' ', Name) > 0 then SUBSTRING(Name, CHARINDEX(' ', Name)+1, LEN(Name)) else '' end
, Phone
, Email
, Rid
from TableA
insert TableC (rid, cid)
select TempRid, cid
from TableB
alter table TableB
drop column TempRid
select * from TableB
select * from TableC
Try it here: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!3/aaaed/1
Or the alternate method (inserting to C before B) here: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!3/99592/1