I am trying to INSERT INTO a table using the input from another table. Although this is entirely feasible for many database engines, I always seem to struggle to remember the correct syntax for the SQL engine of the day (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, and DB2).
Is there a silver-bullet syntax coming from an SQL standard (for example, SQL-92) that would allow me to insert the values without worrying about the underlying database?
Try:
INSERT INTO table1 ( column1 )
SELECT col1
FROM table2
This is standard ANSI SQL and should work on any DBMS
It definitely works for:
Oracle
MS SQL Server
MySQL
Postgres
SQLite v3
Teradata
DB2
Sybase
Vertica
HSQLDB
H2
AWS RedShift
SAP HANA
Google Spanner
Claude Houle's answer: should work fine, and you can also have multiple columns and other data as well:
INSERT INTO table1 ( column1, column2, someInt, someVarChar )
SELECT table2.column1, table2.column2, 8, 'some string etc.'
FROM table2
WHERE table2.ID = 7;
I've only used this syntax with Access, SQL 2000/2005/Express, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, so those should be covered. It should also work with SQLite3.
To get only one value in a multi value INSERT from another table I did the following in SQLite3:
INSERT INTO column_1 ( val_1, val_from_other_table )
VALUES('val_1', (SELECT val_2 FROM table_2 WHERE val_2 = something))
Both the answers I see work fine in Informix specifically, and are basically standard SQL. That is, the notation:
INSERT INTO target_table[(<column-list>)] SELECT ... FROM ...;
works fine with Informix and, I would expect, all the DBMS. (Once upon 5 or more years ago, this is the sort of thing that MySQL did not always support; it now has decent support for this sort of standard SQL syntax and, AFAIK, it would work OK on this notation.) The column list is optional but indicates the target columns in sequence, so the first column of the result of the SELECT will go into the first listed column, etc. In the absence of the column list, the first column of the result of the SELECT goes into the first column of the target table.
What can be different between systems is the notation used to identify tables in different databases - the standard has nothing to say about inter-database (let alone inter-DBMS) operations. With Informix, you can use the following notation to identify a table:
[dbase[#server]:][owner.]table
That is, you may specify a database, optionally identifying the server that hosts that database if it is not in the current server, followed by an optional owner, dot, and finally the actual table name. The SQL standard uses the term schema for what Informix calls the owner. Thus, in Informix, any of the following notations could identify a table:
table
"owner".table
dbase:table
dbase:owner.table
dbase#server:table
dbase#server:owner.table
The owner in general does not need to be quoted; however, if you do use quotes, you need to get the owner name spelled correctly - it becomes case-sensitive. That is:
someone.table
"someone".table
SOMEONE.table
all identify the same table. With Informix, there's a mild complication with MODE ANSI databases, where owner names are generally converted to upper-case (informix is the exception). That is, in a MODE ANSI database (not commonly used), you could write:
CREATE TABLE someone.table ( ... )
and the owner name in the system catalog would be "SOMEONE", rather than 'someone'. If you enclose the owner name in double quotes, it acts like a delimited identifier. With standard SQL, delimited identifiers can be used many places. With Informix, you can use them only around owner names -- in other contexts, Informix treats both single-quoted and double-quoted strings as strings, rather than separating single-quoted strings as strings and double-quoted strings as delimited identifiers. (Of course, just for completeness, there is an environment variable, DELIMIDENT, that can be set - to any value, but Y is safest - to indicate that double quotes always surround delimited identifiers and single quotes always surround strings.)
Note that MS SQL Server manages to use [delimited identifiers] enclosed in square brackets. It looks weird to me, and is certainly not part of the SQL standard.
Two approaches for insert into with select sub-query.
With SELECT subquery returning results with One row.
With SELECT subquery returning results with Multiple rows.
1. Approach for With SELECT subquery returning results with one row.
INSERT INTO <table_name> (<field1>, <field2>, <field3>)
VALUES ('DUMMY1', (SELECT <field> FROM <table_name> ),'DUMMY2');
In this case, it assumes SELECT Sub-query returns only one row of result based on WHERE condition or SQL aggregate functions like SUM, MAX, AVG etc. Otherwise it will throw error
2. Approach for With SELECT subquery returning results with multiple rows.
INSERT INTO <table_name> (<field1>, <field2>, <field3>)
SELECT 'DUMMY1', <field>, 'DUMMY2' FROM <table_name>;
The second approach will work for both the cases.
To add something in the first answer, when we want only few records from another table (in this example only one):
INSERT INTO TABLE1
(COLUMN1, COLUMN2, COLUMN3, COLUMN4)
VALUES (value1, value2,
(SELECT COLUMN_TABLE2
FROM TABLE2
WHERE COLUMN_TABLE2 like "blabla"),
value4);
Instead of VALUES part of INSERT query, just use SELECT query as below.
INSERT INTO table1 ( column1 , 2, 3... )
SELECT col1, 2, 3... FROM table2
Most of the databases follow the basic syntax,
INSERT INTO TABLE_NAME
SELECT COL1, COL2 ...
FROM TABLE_YOU_NEED_TO_TAKE_FROM
;
Every database I have used follow this syntax namely, DB2, SQL Server, MY SQL, PostgresQL
This can be done without specifying the columns in the INSERT INTO part if you are supplying values for all columns in the SELECT part.
Let's say table1 has two columns. This query should work:
INSERT INTO table1
SELECT col1, col2
FROM table2
This WOULD NOT work (value for col2 is not specified):
INSERT INTO table1
SELECT col1
FROM table2
I'm using MS SQL Server. I don't know how other RDMS work.
This is another example using values with select:
INSERT INTO table1(desc, id, email)
SELECT "Hello World", 3, email FROM table2 WHERE ...
Just use parenthesis for SELECT clause into INSERT. For example like this :
INSERT INTO Table1 (col1, col2, your_desired_value_from_select_clause, col3)
VALUES (
'col1_value',
'col2_value',
(SELECT col_Table2 FROM Table2 WHERE IdTable2 = 'your_satisfied_value_for_col_Table2_selected'),
'col3_value'
);
Simple insertion when table column sequence is known:
Insert into Table1
values(1,2,...)
Simple insertion mentioning column:
Insert into Table1(col2,col4)
values(1,2)
Bulk insertion when number of selected columns of a table(#table2) are equal to insertion table(Table1)
Insert into Table1 {Column sequence}
Select * -- column sequence should be same.
from #table2
Bulk insertion when you want to insert only into desired column of a table(table1):
Insert into Table1 (Column1,Column2 ....Desired Column from Table1)
Select Column1,Column2..desired column from #table2
from #table2
Here is another example where source is taken using more than one table:
INSERT INTO cesc_pf_stmt_ext_wrk(
PF_EMP_CODE ,
PF_DEPT_CODE ,
PF_SEC_CODE ,
PF_PROL_NO ,
PF_FM_SEQ ,
PF_SEQ_NO ,
PF_SEP_TAG ,
PF_SOURCE)
SELECT
PFl_EMP_CODE ,
PFl_DEPT_CODE ,
PFl_SEC ,
PFl_PROL_NO ,
PF_FM_SEQ ,
PF_SEQ_NO ,
PFl_SEP_TAG ,
PF_SOURCE
FROM cesc_pf_stmt_ext,
cesc_pfl_emp_master
WHERE pfl_sep_tag LIKE '0'
AND pfl_emp_code=pf_emp_code(+);
COMMIT;
Here's how to insert from multiple tables. This particular example is where you have a mapping table in a many to many scenario:
insert into StudentCourseMap (StudentId, CourseId)
SELECT Student.Id, Course.Id FROM Student, Course
WHERE Student.Name = 'Paddy Murphy' AND Course.Name = 'Basket weaving for beginners'
(I realise matching on the student name might return more than one value but you get the idea. Matching on something other than an Id is necessary when the Id is an Identity column and is unknown.)
You could try this if you want to insert all column using SELECT * INTO table.
SELECT *
INTO Table2
FROM Table1;
I actually prefer the following in SQL Server 2008:
SELECT Table1.Column1, Table1.Column2, Table2.Column1, Table2.Column2, 'Some String' AS SomeString, 8 AS SomeInt
INTO Table3
FROM Table1 INNER JOIN Table2 ON Table1.Column1 = Table2.Column3
It eliminates the step of adding the Insert () set, and you just select which values go in the table.
This worked for me:
insert into table1 select * from table2
The sentence is a bit different from Oracle's.
INSERT INTO yourtable
SELECT fielda, fieldb, fieldc
FROM donortable;
This works on all DBMS
For Microsoft SQL Server, I will recommend learning to interpret the SYNTAX provided on MSDN. With Google it's easier than ever, to look for syntax.
For this particular case, try
Google: insert site:microsoft.com
The first result will be http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174335.aspx
scroll down to the example ("Using the SELECT and EXECUTE options to insert data from other tables") if you find it difficult to interpret the syntax given at the top of the page.
[ WITH <common_table_expression> [ ,...n ] ]
INSERT
{
[ TOP ( expression ) [ PERCENT ] ]
[ INTO ]
{ <object> | rowset_function_limited
[ WITH ( <Table_Hint_Limited> [ ...n ] ) ]
}
{
[ ( column_list ) ]
[ <OUTPUT Clause> ]
{ VALUES ( { DEFAULT | NULL | expression } [ ,...n ] ) [ ,...n ]
| derived_table <<<<------- Look here ------------------------
| execute_statement <<<<------- Look here ------------------------
| <dml_table_source> <<<<------- Look here ------------------------
| DEFAULT VALUES
}
}
}
[;]
This should be applicable for any other RDBMS available there. There is no point in remembering all the syntax for all products IMO.
INSERT INTO FIRST_TABLE_NAME (COLUMN_NAME)
SELECT COLUMN_NAME
FROM ANOTHER_TABLE_NAME
WHERE CONDITION;
Best way to insert multiple records from any other tables.
INSERT INTO dbo.Users
( UserID ,
Full_Name ,
Login_Name ,
Password
)
SELECT UserID ,
Full_Name ,
Login_Name ,
Password
FROM Users_Table
(INNER JOIN / LEFT JOIN ...)
(WHERE CONDITION...)
(OTHER CLAUSE)
select *
into tmp
from orders
Looks nice, but works only if tmp doesn't exists (creates it and fills). (SQL sever)
To insert into existing tmp table:
set identity_insert tmp on
insert tmp
([OrderID]
,[CustomerID]
,[EmployeeID]
,[OrderDate]
,[RequiredDate]
,[ShippedDate]
,[ShipVia]
,[Freight]
,[ShipName]
,[ShipAddress]
,[ShipCity]
,[ShipRegion]
,[ShipPostalCode]
,[ShipCountry] )
select * from orders
set identity_insert tmp off
IF you want to insert some data into a table without want to write column name.
INSERT INTO CUSTOMER_INFO
(SELECT CUSTOMER_NAME,
MOBILE_NO,
ADDRESS
FROM OWNER_INFO cm)
Where the tables are:
CUSTOMER_INFO || OWNER_INFO
----------------------------------------||-------------------------------------
CUSTOMER_NAME | MOBILE_NO | ADDRESS || CUSTOMER_NAME | MOBILE_NO | ADDRESS
--------------|-----------|--------- || --------------|-----------|---------
A | +1 | DC || B | +55 | RR
Result:
CUSTOMER_INFO || OWNER_INFO
----------------------------------------||-------------------------------------
CUSTOMER_NAME | MOBILE_NO | ADDRESS || CUSTOMER_NAME | MOBILE_NO | ADDRESS
--------------|-----------|--------- || --------------|-----------|---------
A | +1 | DC || B | +55 | RR
B | +55 | RR ||
If you go the INSERT VALUES route to insert multiple rows, make sure to delimit the VALUES into sets using parentheses, so:
INSERT INTO `receiving_table`
(id,
first_name,
last_name)
VALUES
(1002,'Charles','Babbage'),
(1003,'George', 'Boole'),
(1001,'Donald','Chamberlin'),
(1004,'Alan','Turing'),
(1005,'My','Widenius');
Otherwise MySQL objects that "Column count doesn't match value count at row 1", and you end up writing a trivial post when you finally figure out what to do about it.
If you create table firstly you can use like this;
select * INTO TableYedek From Table
This metot insert values but differently with creating new copy table.
In informix it works as Claude said:
INSERT INTO table (column1, column2)
VALUES (value1, value2);
Postgres supports next:
create table company.monitor2 as select * from company.monitor;
Related
There is a db2 database with two tables. The first one, table1, has autoincrement column ID. It is the foreign key for the table2.
A am writing an HTML generator for SQL queries. So with some input parameters it generates a query or multiple queries. It is not connected to the database.
What I need is to get that autoincrement field and use it in next queries.
So basically, the scenario is:
insert into table1;
select autogenerated field ID;
insert into table2 using that ID;
insert into table2 using that ID;
...some more similar inserts...
insert into table2 using that ID;
And all that SQL query should be generated and then used as a single SQL script.
I was thinking about something like this:
SELECT ID FROM FINAL TABLE (INSERT INTO Table1 (t1column1, t1column2, etc.)
VALUES (t1value1, t1value2, etc.))
But I don't know, how I can write the result into a variable so I could use it in next queries like this:
INSERT INTO Table2 (foreignKeyCol, t2column1, t2column2, etc.)
VALUES ($ID, t2value1, t2value2, etc.)
I could just paste that select instead of $ID, but the second query can be used several times with the same $ID and different values.
EDIT: DB2 10.5 on Linux.
You can chain several inserts together using CTEs, like so:
WITH idcte (id) as (
SELECT ID FROM FINAL TABLE (
INSERT INTO Table1 (t1column1, t1column2, etc.)
VALUES (t1value1, t1value2, etc.)
)
),
ins1 (id) as (
SELECT foreignKeyCol FROM FINAL TABLE (
INSERT INTO Table2 (foreignKeyCol, t2column1, t2column2, etc.)
SELECT id, t2value1, t2value2, etc.
FROM idcte
)
),
-- more CTEs
SELECT foreignKeyCol FROM FINAL TABLE (
-- your last INSERT ... SELECT FROM
)
Essentially you will have to wrap each INSERT into a SELECT FROM FINAL TABLE for this to work.
Alternatively, you can use a global variable to keep the ID value:
CREATE VARIABLE myNewId INT;
SET myNewId = (SELECT ID FROM FINAL TABLE (
INSERT INTO Table1 (t1column1, t1column2, etc.)
VALUES (t1value1, t1value2, etc.)
));
INSERT INTO Table2 (foreignKeyCol, t2column1, t2column2, etc.)
VALUES (myNewId, t2value1, t2value2, etc.);
DROP VARIABLE myNewId;
This assumes a recent version of Db2 for LUW.
I have a component that retrieves data from database based on the keys provided.
However I want my java application to get all the data for all keys in a single database hit to fasten up things.
I can use 'in' clause when I have only one key.
While working on more than one key I can use below query in oracle
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
where (value_type,CODE1) IN (('I','COMM'),('I','CORE'));
which is similar to writing
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
where value_type = 1 and CODE1 = 'COMM'
and
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
where value_type = 1 and CODE1 = 'CORE'
together
However, this concept of using 'in' clause as above is giving below error in 'SQL server'
ERROR:An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected, near ','.
Please let know if their is any way to achieve the same in SQL server.
This syntax doesn't exist in SQL Server. Use a combination of And and Or.
SELECT *
FROM <table_name>
WHERE
(value_type = 1 and CODE1 = 'COMM')
OR (value_type = 1 and CODE1 = 'CORE')
(In this case, you could make it shorter, because value_type is compared to the same value in both combinations. I just wanted to show the pattern that works like IN in oracle with multiple fields.)
When using IN with a subquery, you need to rephrase it like this:
Oracle:
SELECT *
FROM foo
WHERE
(value_type, CODE1) IN (
SELECT type, code
FROM bar
WHERE <some conditions>)
SQL Server:
SELECT *
FROM foo
WHERE
EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM bar
WHERE <some conditions>
AND foo.type_code = bar.type
AND foo.CODE1 = bar.code)
There are other ways to do it, depending on the case, like inner joins and the like.
If you have under 1000 tuples you want to check against and you're using SQL Server 2008+, you can use a table values constructor, and perform a join against it. You can only specify up to 1000 rows in a table values constructor, hence the 1000 tuple limitation. Here's how it would look in your situation:
SELECT <table_name>.* FROM <table_name>
JOIN ( VALUES
('I', 'COMM'),
('I', 'CORE')
) AS MyTable(a, b) ON a = value_type AND b = CODE1;
This is only a good idea if your list of values is going to be unique, otherwise you'll get duplicate values. I'm not sure how the performance of this compares to using many ANDs and ORs, but the SQL query is at least much cleaner to look at, in my opinion.
You can also write this to use EXIST instead of JOIN. That may have different performance characteristics and it will avoid the problem of producing duplicate results if your values aren't unique. It may be worth trying both EXIST and JOIN on your use case to see what's a better fit. Here's how EXIST would look,
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM (
VALUES
('I', 'COMM'),
('I', 'CORE')
) AS MyTable(a, b)
WHERE a = value_type AND b = CODE1
);
In conclusion, I think the best choice is to create a temporary table and query against that. But sometimes that's not possible, e.g. your user lacks the permission to create temporary tables, and then using a table values constructor may be your best choice. Use EXIST or JOIN, depending on which gives you better performance on your database.
Normally you can not do it, but can use the following technique.
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
where (value_type+'/'+CODE1) IN (('I'+'/'+'COMM'),('I'+'/'+'CORE'));
A better solution is to avoid hardcoding your values and put then in a temporary or persistent table:
CREATE TABLE #t (ValueType VARCHAR(16), Code VARCHAR(16))
INSERT INTO #t VALUES ('I','COMM'),('I','CORE')
SELECT DT. *
FROM <table_name> DT
JOIN #t T ON T.ValueType = DT.ValueType AND T.Code = DT.Code
Thus, you avoid storing data in your code (persistent table version) and allow to easily modify the filters (without changing the code).
I think you can try this, combine and and or at the same time.
SELECT
*
FROM
<table_name>
WHERE
value_type = 1
AND (CODE1 = 'COMM' OR CODE1 = 'CORE')
What you can do is 'join' the columns as a string, and pass your values also combined as strings.
where (cast(column1 as text) ||','|| cast(column2 as text)) in (?1)
The other way is to do multiple ands and ors.
I had a similar problem in MS SQL, but a little different. Maybe it will help somebody in futere, in my case i found this solution (not full code, just example):
SELECT Table1.Campaign
,Table1.Coupon
FROM [CRM].[dbo].[Coupons] AS Table1
INNER JOIN [CRM].[dbo].[Coupons] AS Table2 ON Table1.Campaign = Table2.Campaign AND Table1.Coupon = Table2.Coupon
WHERE Table1.Coupon IN ('0000000001', '0000000002') AND Table2.Campaign IN ('XXX000000001', 'XYX000000001')
Of cource on Coupon and Campaign in table i have index for fast search.
Compute it in MS Sql
SELECT * FROM <table_name>
where value_type + '|' + CODE1 IN ('I|COMM', 'I|CORE');
I Can't run this query with SQLite
if 0<(select COUNT(*) from Repetition where (Word='behnam' and Topic='mine'))
begin
update Repetition set Counts=1+ (select Counts from Repetition where (Word='behnam' and Topic='mine'))
end
else
begin
insert Repetition(Word,Topic,Counts)values('behnam','mine',1)
end
It says "Syntax error near IF"
How can I solve the problem
SQLite does not have an IF statement (see the list of supported queries)
Insetad, check out out ERIC B's suggestion on another thread. You're effectively looking at doing an UPSERT (UPdate if the record exists, INSERT if not). Eric B. has a good example of how to do this in SQLite syntax utilizing the "INSERT OR REPLACE" functionality in SQLite. Basically, you'd do something like:
INSERT OR REPLACE INTO Repetition (Word, Topic, Counts)
VALUES ( 'behnam', 'mine',
coalesce((select Counts + 1 from Repetition
where Word = 'behnam', AND Topic = 'mine)
,1)
)
Another approach is to INSERT ... SELECT ... WHERE ... EXISTS [or not] (SELECT ...);
I do this sort of thing all the time, and I use jklemmack's suggestion as well. And I do it for other purposes too, such as doing JOINs in UPDATEs (which SQLite3 does not support).
For example:
CREATE TABLE t(id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, c1 TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE, c2 TEXT);
CREATE TABLE r(c1 TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE, c2 TEXT);
INSERT OR REPLACE INTO t (id, c1, c2)
SELECT t.id, coalesce(r.c1, t.c1), coalesce(r.c2, t.c2)
FROM r LEFT OUTER JOIN t ON r.c1 = t.c1
WHERE r.c2 = #param;
The WHERE there has the condition that you'd have in your IF. The JOIN in the SELECT provides the JOIN that SQLite3 doesn't support in UPDATE. The INSERT OR REPLACE and the use of t.id (which can be NULL if the row doesn't exist in t) together provide the THEN and ELSE bodies.
You can apply this over and over. If you'd have three statements (that cannot somehow be merged into one) in the THEN part of the IF you'd need to have three statements with the IF condition in their WHEREs.
This is called an UPSERT (i.e. UPdate or inSERT). It has its forms in almost every type of database. Look at this question for the SQLite version: SQLite - UPSERT *not* INSERT or REPLACE
One way that I've found is based on SQL WHERE clause true/false statement:
SELECT * FROM SOME_TABLE
WHERE
(
SELECT SINGLE_COLUMN_NAME FROM SOME_OTHER_TABLE
WHERE
SOME_COLUMN = 'some value' and
SOME_OTHER_COLUMN = 'some other value'
)
This actually means execute some QUERIES if some other QUERY returns 'any' result.
I need to select rows where a field begins with one of several different prefixes:
select * from table
where field like 'ab%'
or field like 'cd%'
or field like "ef%"
or...
What is the best way to do this using SQL in Oracle or SQL Server? I'm looking for something like the following statements (which are incorrect):
select * from table where field like in ('ab%', 'cd%', 'ef%', ...)
or
select * from table where field like in (select foo from bar)
EDIT:
I would like to see how this is done with either giving all the prefixes in one SELECT statement, of having all the prefixes stored in a helper table.
Length of the prefixes is not fixed.
Joining your prefix table with your actual table would work in both SQL Server & Oracle.
DECLARE #Table TABLE (field VARCHAR(32))
DECLARE #Prefixes TABLE (prefix VARCHAR(32))
INSERT INTO #Table VALUES ('ABC')
INSERT INTO #Table VALUES ('DEF')
INSERT INTO #Table VALUES ('ABDEF')
INSERT INTO #Table VALUES ('DEFAB')
INSERT INTO #Table VALUES ('EFABD')
INSERT INTO #Prefixes VALUES ('AB%')
INSERT INTO #Prefixes VALUES ('DE%')
SELECT t.*
FROM #Table t
INNER JOIN #Prefixes pf ON t.field LIKE pf.prefix
you can try regular expression
SELECT * from table where REGEXP_LIKE ( field, '^(ab|cd|ef)' );
If your prefix is always two characters, could you not just use the SUBSTRING() function to get the first two characters of "field", and then see if it's in the list of prefixes?
select * from table
where SUBSTRING(field, 1, 2) IN (prefix1, prefix2, prefix3...)
That would be "best" in terms of simplicity, if not performance. Performance-wise, you could create an indexed virtual column that generates your prefix from "field", and then use the virtual column in your predicate.
Depending on the size of the dataset, the REGEXP solution may or may not be the right answer. If you're trying to get a small slice of a big dataset,
select * from table
where field like 'ab%'
or field like 'cd%'
or field like "ef%"
or...
may be rewritten behind the scenes as
select * from table
where field like 'ab%'
union all
select * from table
where field like 'cd%'
union all
select * from table
where field like 'ef%'
Doing three index scans instead of a full scan.
If you know you're only going after the first two characters, creating a function-based index could be a good solution as well. If you really really need to optimize this, use a global temporary table to store the values of interest, and perform a semi-join between them:
select * from data_table
where transform(field) in (select pre_transformed_field
from my_where_clause_table);
You can also try like this, here tmp is temporary table that is populated by the required prefixes. Its a simple way, and does the job.
select * from emp join
(select 'ab%' as Prefix
union
select 'cd%' as Prefix
union
select 'ef%' as Prefix) tmp
on emp.Name like tmp.Prefix
Is there a better solution to the problem of looking up multiple known IDs in a table:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id='1001' OR id='2002' OR id='3003' OR ...
I can have several hundreds of known items. Ideas?
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE ID IN ('1001', '1002', '1003')
and if your known IDs are coming from another table
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE ID IN (
SELECT KnownID FROM some_other_table WHERE someCondition
)
The first (naive) option:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN ('1001', '2002', '3003' ... )
However, we should be able to do better. IN is very bad when you have a lot of items, and you mentioned hundreds of these ids. What creates them? Where do they come from? Can you write a query that returns this list? If so:
SELECT *
FROM some_table
INNER JOIN ( your query here) filter ON some_table.id=filter.id
See Arrays and Lists in SQL Server 2005
ORs are notoriously slow in SQL.
Your question is short on specifics, but depending on your requirements and constraints I would build a look-up table with your IDs and use the EXISTS predicate:
select t.id from some_table t
where EXISTS (select * from lookup_table l where t.id = l.id)
For a fixed set of IDs you can do:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN (1001, 2002, 3003);
For a set that changes each time, you might want to create a table to hold them and then query:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE id IN
(SELECT id FROM selected_ids WHERE key=123);
Another approach is to use collections - the syntax for this will depend on your DBMS.
Finally, there is always this "kludgy" approach:
SELECT * FROM some_table WHERE '|1001|2002|3003|' LIKE '%|' || id || '|%';
In Oracle, I always put the id's into a TEMPORARY TABLE to perform massive SELECT's and DML operations:
CREATE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE t_temp (id INT)
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE mytable.id IN
(
SELECT id
FROM t_temp
)
You can fill the temporary table in a single client-server roundtrip using Oracle collection types.
We have a similar issue in an application written for MS SQL Server 7. Although I dislike the solution used, we're not aware of anything better...
'Better' solutions exist in 2008 as far as I know, but we have Zero clients using that :)
We created a table valued user defined function that takes a comma delimited string of IDs, and returns a table of IDs. The SQL then reads reasonably well, and none of it is dynamic, but there is still the annoying double overhead:
1. Client concatenates the IDs into the string
2. SQL Server parses the string to create a table of IDs
There are lots of ways of turning '1,2,3,4,5' into a table of IDs, but the Stored Procedure which uses the function ends up looking like...
CREATE PROCEDURE my_road_to_hell #IDs AS VARCHAR(8000)
AS
BEGIN
SELECT
*
FROM
myTable
INNER JOIN
dbo.fn_split_list(#IDs) AS [IDs]
ON [IDs].id = myTable.id
END
The fastest is to put the ids in another table and JOIN
SELECT some_table.*
FROM some_table INNER JOIN some_other_table ON some_table.id = some_other_table.id
where some_other_table would have just one field (ids) and all values would be unique