T-SQL Query to process data in batches without breaking groups - tsql

Question

I am using SQL 2008 and trying to process the data I have in a table in batches, however, there is a catch. The data is broken into groups and, as I do my processing, I have to make sure that a group will always be contained within a batch or, in other words, that the group will never be split across different batches. It's assumed that the batch size will always be much larger than the group size. Here is the setup to illustrate what I mean (the code is using Jeff Moden's data generation logic: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Data+Generation/87901)
DECLARE #NumberOfRows INT = 1000,
#StartValue INT = 1,
#EndValue INT = 500,
#Range INT
SET #Range = #EndValue - #StartValue + 1
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#SomeTestTable','U') IS NOT NULL
DROP TABLE #SomeTestTable;
SELECT TOP (#NumberOfRows)
GroupID = ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID())) % #Range + #StartValue
INTO #SomeTestTable
FROM sys.all_columns ac1
CROSS JOIN sys.all_columns ac2
This will create a table with about 435 groups of records containing between 1 and 7 records in each. Now, let's say I want to process these records in batches of 100 records per batch. How can I make sure that my GroupID's don't get split between different batches? I am fine if each batch is not exactly 100 records, it could be a little more or a little less.
I appreciate any suggestions!

Answer 1

This will result in slightly smaller batches than 100 entries, it'll remove all groups that aren't entirely in the selection;
WITH cte AS (SELECT TOP 100 * FROM (
SELECT GroupID, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY GroupID ORDER BY GroupID) r
FROM #SomeTestTable) a
ORDER BY GroupID, r DESC)
SELECT c1.GroupID FROM cte c1
JOIN cte c2
ON c1.GroupID = c2.GroupID
AND c2.r = 1
It'll select the groups with the lowest GroupID's, limited to 100 entries into a common table expression along with the row number, then it'll use the row number to throw away any groups that aren't entirely in the selection (row number 1 needs to be in the selection for the group to be, since the row number is ordered descending before cutting with TOP).