I want to check if there are any records in a table for a certain entry. I used COUNT(*) to check the number of records and got it to work. However, when the number of records for an entry is very high, my page loads slowly.
I guess COUNT(*) is causing the problem, but how do I check if the records exist without using it? I only want to check whether any records exist for the entry and then execute some code. Please help me find an alternative solution for this.
Thanks for any help.
There are several ways that may work. You can use exists, which lets the database optimise the method to get the answer:
if exists(select * from ...)
You can use top 1 so that the database can stop after finding the first match:
if (select count(*) from (select top 1 * from ...)) > 0
use select top 1 and check is there is an row
You can try selecting the first entry for given condition.
SELECT id FROM table WHERE <condition> LIMIT 1
I'm not sure if this will be quicker but you can try.
Other possible solution. How do you use count? COUNT(*)? If yes, then try using COUNT(id). As I remember this should be faster.
I would recommend testing to see if at least 1 record exists in the table, that meets your criteria then continue accordingly. For example:
IF EXISTS
(
SELECT TOP 1 Table_Name --Or Your ColumnName
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Tables -- Or your TableName
)
BEGIN
PRINT 'At least one record exists in table'
END
I found this on codeproject. It's quite handy.
-- Author,,Md. Marufuzzaman
SELECT SYS_OBJ.NAME AS "TABLE NAME"
, SYS_INDX.ROWCNT AS "ROW COUNT"
FROM SYSOBJECTS SYS_OBJ, SYSINDEXES SYS_INDX
WHERE SYS_INDX.ID = SYS_OBJ.ID
AND INDID IN(0,1) --This specifies 'user' databases only
AND XTYPE = 'U' --This omits the diagrams table of the database
--You may find other system tables will need to be ommitted,
AND SYS_OBJ.NAME <> 'SYSDIAGRAMS'
ORDER BY SYS_INDX.rowcnt DESC --I found it more useful to display
--The following line adds up all the rowcount results and places
--the final result into a separate column [below the first resulting table]
COMPUTE SUM(SYS_INDX.ROWCNT)
GO
you should use
select count(1) from
If you are saying (*) it will expand all the column's and then count
Related
As the title suggests... I'm trying to figure out the fastest way with the least overhead to determine if a record exists in a table or not.
Sample query:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM products WHERE products.id = ?;
vs
SELECT COUNT(products.id) FROM products WHERE products.id = ?;
vs
SELECT products.id FROM products WHERE products.id = ?;
Say the ? is swapped with 'TB100'... both the first and second queries will return the exact same result (say... 1 for this conversation). The last query will return 'TB100' as expected, or nothing if the id is not present in the table.
The purpose is to figure out if the id is in the table or not. If not, the program will next insert the record, if it is, the program will skip it or perform an UPDATE query based on other program logic outside the scope of this question.
Which is faster and has less overhead? (This will be repeated tens of thousands of times per program run, and will be run many times a day).
(Running this query against M$ SQL Server from Java via the M$ provided JDBC driver)
EXISTS (or NOT EXISTS) is specially designed for checking if something exists and therefore should be (and is) the best option. It will halt on the first row that matches so it does not require a TOP clause and it does not actually select any data so there is no overhead in size of columns. You can safely use SELECT * here - no different than SELECT 1, SELECT NULL or SELECT AnyColumn... (you can even use an invalid expression like SELECT 1/0 and it will not break).
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM Products WHERE id = ?)
BEGIN
--do what you need if exists
END
ELSE
BEGIN
--do what needs to be done if not
END
SELECT TOP 1 products.id FROM products WHERE products.id = ?; will outperform all of your suggestions as it will terminate execution after it finds the first record.
Nothing can beat -
SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM products WHERE id = 'some value';
You don't need to count to know if there is a data in table. And don't use alias when not necessary.
SELECT CASE WHEN EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 *
FROM dbo.[YourTable]
WHERE [YourColumn] = [YourValue])
THEN CAST (1 AS BIT)
ELSE CAST (0 AS BIT) END
This approach returns a boolean for you.
Don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but if you are sure the data won't change underneath you, you may want to also apply the NoLock hint to ensure it is not blocked when reading.
SELECT CASE WHEN EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM dbo.[YourTable] WITH (NOLOCK)
WHERE [YourColumn] = [YourValue])
THEN CAST (1 AS BIT)
ELSE CAST (0 AS BIT) END
You can also use
If EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM dbo.T1 WHERE T1.Name='Scot')
BEGIN
--<Do something>
END
ELSE
BEGIN
--<Do something>
END
Below is the simplest and fastest way to determine if a record exists in database or not
Good thing is it works in all Relational DB's
SELECT distinct 1 products.id FROM products WHERE products.id = ?;
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM products WHERE products.id = ?;
This is the cross relational database solution that works in all databases.
For those stumbling upon this from MySQL or Oracle background - MySQL supports the LIMIT clause to select a limited number of records, while Oracle uses ROWNUM.
For MySql you can use LIMIT like below (Example shows in PHP)
$sql = "SELECT column_name FROM table_name WHERE column_name = 'your_value' LIMIT 1";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
if ($result -> num_rows > 0) {
echo "Value exists" ;
} else {
echo "Value not found";
}
create or replace procedure ex(j in number) as
i number;
begin
select id into i from student where id=j;
if i is not null then
dbms_output.put_line('exists');
end if;
exception
when no_data_found then
dbms_output.put_line(i||' does not exists');
end;
I've used this in the past and it doesn't require a full table scan to see if something exists. It's super fast...
UPDATE TableName SET column=value WHERE column=value
IF ##ROWCOUNT=0
BEGIN
--Do work
END
SQL SERVER 2012+
SELECT IIF((SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM dbo.[YourTable] WHERE [YourColumn] = [YourValue]) IS NULL, 0, 1)
May you wanna try my way:
IF (SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM [TableName]) = 1
BEGIN
--Do work
END
I'm using SQL Server 2008 R2, and I'm trying to find an efficient way to test if more than 1 row exists in a table matching a condition.
The naive way to do it is a COUNT:
IF ( SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM Table
WHERE Column = <something>
) > 1 BEGIN
...
END
But this requires actually computing a COUNT, which is wasteful. I just want to test for more than 1.
The only thing I've come up with is a COUNT on a TOP 2:
IF ( SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM ( SELECT TOP 2 0 x
FROM Table
WHERE Column = <something>
) x
) > 1 BEGIN
...
END
This is clunky and requires commenting to document. Is there a more terse way?
If you have a PK in the table that you're checking for >1 row, you could nest another EXISTS clause. Not sure if this is faster, but it achieves your record result. For example, assuming a Station table with a PK named ID that can have zero-to-many Location table records with a PK named ID, Location has FK StationID, and you want to find the Stations with at least two Locations:
SELECT s.ID
FROM Station s
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM Location L
WHERE L.StationID = s.ID
AND EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM Location L2
WHERE L2.StationID = L.StationID
AND L2.ID <> L.ID
)
)
I have the following solution to share, which may be lighter performance-wise.
I suppose that you are trying to fetch the first record and process it once you make sure that your SQL selection returns a single record. Therefore, go on and fetch it, but once you do that, try to fetch the next record right away, and if successful, you know that more than one record exists, and you can start your exception processing logic. Otherwise, you can still process your single record.
I have a valid SQL select which returns an empty result, up and until a specific transaction has taken place in the environment.
Is there something available in SQL itself, that will allow me to return a 0 as opposed to an empty dataset? Similar to isNULL('', 0) functionality. Obviously I tried that and it didn't work.
PS. Sadly I don't have access to the database, or the environment, I have an agent installed that is executing these queries so I'm limited to solving this problem with just SQL.
FYI: Take any select and run it where the "condition" is not fulfilled (where LockCookie='777777777' for example.) If that condition is never met, the result is empty. But at some point the query will succeed based on a set of operations/tasks that happen. But I would like to return 0, up until that event has occurred.
You can store your result in a temp table and check ##rowcount.
select ID
into #T
from YourTable
where SomeColumn = #SomeValue
if ##rowcount = 0
select 0 as ID
else
select ID
from #T
drop table #T
If you want this as one query with no temp table you can wrap your query in an outer apply against a dummy table with only one row.
select isnull(T.ID, D.ID) as ID
from (values(0)) as D(ID)
outer apply
(
select ID
from YourTable
where SomeColumn = #SomeValue
) as T
alternet way is from code, you can check count of DataSet.
DsData.Tables[0].Rows.count > 0
make sure that your query matches your conditions
select Top(1)* from TableName Where columnName=value
selects only the first row just fine. However if I change the select to a delete I get an error and can't figure out how to write a query to delete only 1 record that matches my query from the db.
I'm wondering if anybody out there smarter than I knows if or how this can be done in SQL CE.
Did you try something like this?
DELETE TableName where IdColumn In ( select Top(1) IdColumn from TableName Where columnName=valuev)
I don't know specifically as I'm at home, but SQL CE is deliberately restricted in what it can do. One reason for this is that it is 'always' running locally to the process referencing it.
What means is that it is Expected that the other process is expected to handle much of the logic that may otherwise be encapsulated in the SQL Server. This often results in firing several queries at the SQL CE instance, where you may be more accustomed to firing off one.
In this case, you could do it with two queries...
1) A query to identify the record that you want to delete
2) Use that Identifier in another query to do the actual delete
You could also try using SET ROWCOUNT 1 to limit the DELETE to just 1 row. But again, I don't know if that works in CE.
You can use CTE such as
;with myTopRow(rowID)
(
select Top 1 rowID from TableName Where columnName=value
)
delete from TableName inner join myTopRow on TableName.rowID = myTopRow.rowID
Shouldn't it be rather :
DELETE FROM TableName WHERE columnName=value ORDER BY columnName LIMIT 1;
IMHO, the table logically has NO order by itself. It has it physically, but you can't rely on it. So, you HAVE to set the order in which you want to delete the first row.
The following code will delete only first row
Dim mySqlCommondDelete As String = "DELETE BOOK_ID, MemberID FROM (SELECT TOP 1 * FROM ISSUE_BOOK) where BOOK_ID = Val(" & deleteBook & ") and MemberID = Val(" & msk & ")"
How to Check whether a table contains rows or not sql server 2005?
For what purpose?
Quickest for an IF would be IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM Table)...
For a result set, SELECT TOP 1 1 FROM Table returns either zero or one rows
For exactly one row with a count (0 or non-zero), SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Table
Also, you can use exists
select case when exists (select 1 from table)
then 'contains rows'
else 'doesnt contain rows'
end
or to check if there are child rows for a particular record :
select * from Table t1
where exists(
select 1 from ChildTable t2
where t1.id = t2.parentid)
or in a procedure
if exists(select 1 from table)
begin
-- do stuff
end
Like Other said you can use something like that:
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM Table)
BEGIN
--Do Something
END
ELSE
BEGIN
--Do Another Thing
END
FOR the best performance, use specific column name instead of * - for example:
SELECT TOP 1 <columnName>
FROM <tableName>
This is optimal because, instead of returning the whole list of columns, it is returning just one. That can save some time.
Also, returning just first row if there are any values, makes it even faster. Actually you got just one value as the result - if there are any rows, or no value if there is no rows.
If you use the table in distributed manner, which is most probably the case, than transporting just one value from the server to the client is much faster.
You also should choose wisely among all the columns to get data from a column which can take as less resource as possible.
Can't you just count the rows using select count(*) from table (or an indexed column instead of * if speed is important)?
If not then maybe this article can point you in the right direction.
Fast:
SELECT TOP (1) CASE
WHEN **NOT_NULL_COLUMN** IS NULL
THEN 'empty table'
ELSE 'not empty table'
END AS info
FROM **TABLE_NAME**