SQL Delete Where Not In - sql

Question

I have a relation mapping table like this:
attributeid bigint
productid bigint
To clean relations that are not used any more, I want to delete all recors where productid = x and attributeid not in (#includedIds), like the following example:
#attributetypeid bigint,
#productid bigint,
#includedids varchar(MAX)
DELETE FROM reltable
WHERE productid = #productid AND
attributetypeid = #attributetypeid AND
attributeid NOT IN (#includedids);
When running the SQL with the includedids param containing more than 1 id - like this: 25,26 - I get a SqlException saying:
Error converting data type varchar to bigint.
And that is of course due to the , in that varchar(max) param...
How should I construct my delete statement to make it work?

Answer 1

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ListToTable] (
/*
FUNCTION ListToTable
Usage: select entry from listtotable('abc,def,ghi') order by entry desc
PURPOSE: Takes a comma-delimited list as a parameter and returns the values of that list into a table variable.
*/
#mylist varchar(8000)
)
RETURNS #ListTable TABLE (
seqid int not null,
entry varchar(255) not null)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE
#this varchar(255),
#rest varchar(8000),
#pos int,
#seqid int
SET #this = ' '
SET #seqid = 1
SET #rest = #mylist
SET #pos = PATINDEX('%,%', #rest)
WHILE (#pos > 0)
BEGIN
set #this=substring(#rest,1,#pos-1)
set #rest=substring(#rest,#pos+1,len(#rest)-#pos)
INSERT INTO #ListTable (seqid,entry) VALUES (#seqid,#this)
SET #pos= PATINDEX('%,%', #rest)
SET #seqid=#seqid+1
END
set #this=#rest
INSERT INTO #ListTable (seqid,entry) VALUES (#seqid,#this)
RETURN
END
Run that script in your SQL Server database to create the function ListToTable. Now, you can rewrite your query like so:
#attributetypeid bigint,
#productid bigint,
#includedids varchar(MAX)
DELETE FROM reltable
WHERE productid = #productid AND
attributetypeid = #attributetypeid AND
attributeid NOT IN (SELECT entry FROM ListToTable(#includedids));
Where #includedids is a comma delimited list that you provide. I use this function all the time when working with lists. Keep in mind this function does not necessarily sanitize your inputs, it just looks for character data in a comma delimited list and puts each element into a record. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Joel Spolsky answered a very similar question here: Parameterize an SQL IN clause
You could try something similar, making sure to cast your attributetypeid as a varchar.

Answer 3

You can't pass a list as an parameter (AFAIK).
Can you rewrite the sql to use a subquery, something like this:
delete from reltable
WHERE productid = #productid AND
attributetypeid = #attributetypeid AND
attributeid NOT IN (select id from ... where ... );
?

Answer 4

That comma delimited list can be sent to a user defined function which will return it as a simple table. That table can then be queried by your NOT IN.
If you need the fn I can provide.. It's been about 5 yrs since I used sql much and I'll have to dust off that section of my brain..

Answer 5

Erland has the definitive guide for dealing with lists to table in SQL 2005, SQL 2008 gives you table based params.
On a side note I would avoid a NOT IN pattern for large lists, cause it does not scale, instead look at using left joins.