SQL Server - Compare Varchar values using IN - sql

Question

In my table, I have a varchar column whereby multi-values are stored. An example of my table:
RecNum | Title | Category
-----------------------------------------
wja-2012-000001 | abcdef | 4,6
wja-2012-000002 | qwerty | 1,3,7
wja-2012-000003 | asdffg |
wja-2012-000004 | zxcvbb | 2,7
wja-2012-000005 | ploiuh | 3,4,12
The values in the Category column points to another table.
How can I return the relevant rows if I want to retrieve the rows with value 1,3,5,6,8 in the Category column?
When I tried using IN, I get the 'Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '1,3,5,6,8' to data type int' error.

Answer 1

Breaking the Categories out into a separate table would be a better design if that's a change you can make... otherwise, you could create a function to split the values into a table of integers like this:
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Split(#String varchar(8000), #Delimiter char(1))
returns #temptable TABLE (id int)
as
begin
declare #idx int
declare #slice varchar(8000)
select #idx = 1
if len(#String)<1 or #String is null return
while #idx!= 0
begin
set #idx = charindex(#Delimiter,#String)
if #idx!=0
set #slice = left(#String,#idx - 1)
else
set #slice = #String
if(len(#slice)>0)
insert into #temptable(id) values(convert(int, #slice))
set #String = right(#String,len(#String) - #idx)
if len(#String) = 0 break
end
return
end
Then call it from your query:
SELECT ...
FROM ...
WHERE #SomeID IN (SELECT id FROM dbo.Split(Category, ','))
Or if you're looking to provide a list of categories as an input parameter (such as '1,3,5,6,8'), and return all records in your table that contain at least one of these values, you could use a query like this:
SELECT ...
FROM ...
WHERE
EXISTS (
select 1
from dbo.Split(Category, ',') s1
join dbo.Split(#SearchValues, ',') s2 ON s1.id = s2.id
)

Answer 2

you can do like this
declare #var varchar(30); set #var='2,3';
exec('select * from category where Category_Id in ('+#var+')')

Answer 3

Try this solution:
CREATE TABLE test4(RecNum varchar(20),Title varchar(10),Category varchar(15))
INSERT INTO test4
VALUES('wja-2012-000001','abcdef','4,6'),
('wja-2012-000002','qwerty','1,3,7'),
('wja-2012-000003','asdffg',null),
('wja-2012-000004','zxcvbb','2,7'),
('wja-2012-000005','ploiuh','3,4,12')
select * from test4
Declare #str varchar(25) = '1,3,5,6,8'
;WITH CTE as (select RecNum,Title,Category from test4)
,CTE1 as (
select RecNum,Title,RIGHT(#str,LEN(#str)-CHARINDEX(',',#str,1)) as rem from CTE where category like '%'+LEFT(#str,1)+'%'
union all
select c.RecNum,c.Title,RIGHT(c1.rem,LEN(c1.rem)-CHARINDEX(',',c1.rem,1)) as rem from CTE1 c1 inner join CTE c
on c.category like '%'+LEFT(c1.rem,1)+'%' and CHARINDEX(',',c1.rem,1)>0
)
select RecNum,Title from CTE1

Answer 4

As mentioned by others, your table design violates basic database design principles and if there is no way around it, you could normalize the table with little code (example below) and then join away with the other table. Here you go:
Data:
CREATE TABLE data(RecNum varchar(20),Title varchar(10),Category varchar(15))
INSERT INTO data
VALUES('wja-2012-000001','abcdef','4,6'),
('wja-2012-000002','qwerty','1,3,7'),
('wja-2012-000003','asdffg',null),
('wja-2012-000004','zxcvbb','2,7'),
('wja-2012-000005','ploiuh','3,4,12')
This function takes a comma separated string and returns a table:
CREATE FUNCTION listToTable (#list nvarchar(MAX))
RETURNS #tbl TABLE (number int NOT NULL) AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #pos int,
#nextpos int,
#valuelen int
SELECT #pos = 0, #nextpos = 1
WHILE #nextpos > 0
BEGIN
SELECT #nextpos = charindex(',', #list, #pos + 1)
SELECT #valuelen = CASE WHEN #nextpos > 0
THEN #nextpos
ELSE len(#list) + 1
END - #pos - 1
INSERT #tbl (number)
VALUES (convert(int, substring(#list, #pos + 1, #valuelen)))
SELECT #pos = #nextpos
END
RETURN
END
Then, you can do something like this to "normalize" the table:
SELECT *
FROM data m
CROSS APPLY listToTable(m.Category) AS t
where Category is not null
And then use the result of the above query to join with the "other" table. For example (i did not test this query):
select * from otherTable a
join listToTable('1,3,5,6,8') b
on a.Category = b.number
join(
SELECT *
FROM data m
CROSS APPLY listToTable(m.Category) AS t
where Category is not null
) c
on a.category = c.number