How do you exclude a column from showing up if there is no value? - tsql

Question about a query I'm trying to write in SQL Server Management Studio 2008. I am pulling 2 rows. The first row being the header information, the second row being the information for a certain Line Item. Keep in mind, the actual header information reads as "Column 0, 1, 2, 3, 4,.... etc."
The data looks something like this:
ROW 1: Model # | Item Description| XS | S | M | L | XL|
ROW 2: 3241 | Gray Sweatshirt| | 20 | 20 | 30 | |
Basically this shows that there are 20 smalls, 20 mediums, and 30 larges of this particular item. There are no XS's or XL's.
I want to create a subquery that puts this information in one row, but at the same time, disinclude the sizes with a blank quantity amount as shown under the XS and XL sizes.
I want it to look like this when all is said and done:
ROW 1: MODEL #| 3241 | ITEM DESCRIPTION | Gray Sweatshirt | S | 10 | M | 20 | L | 30 |
Notice there are no XS or XL's included. How do I do make it so those columns do not appear?

Since you are not posting your query, nor your table structure, I guess it is with columns Id, Description, Size. If so, you could do this and just replace with your table and column names:
DECLARE #columns varchar(8000)
SELECT #columns = COALESCE (#columns + ',[' + cast(Size as varchar) + ']', '[' + cast(Size as varchar) + ']' )
FROM YourTableName
WHERE COUNT(Size) > 0
DECLARE #query varchar(8000) = 'SELECT Id, Description, '
+ #columns +'
FROM
(SELECT Id, Description, Size
FROM YourTableName) AS Source
PIVOT
(
COUNT(Size)
FOR Size IN ('+ #columns +')
) AS Pvt'
EXEC(#query)
Anyhow, I also agree with #MichaelFredickson. I have implemented this pivot solution, yet it is absolutely better to let the presentation layer to take care of this after just pulling the raw data from SQL. If not, you would be processing the data twice, one on SQL to create the table and the other in the presentation when reading and displaying the values with your c#/vb/other code.

Related

PostGIS returns record as datatype. This is unexpected

I have this query
WITH buffered AS (
SELECT
ST_Buffer(geom , 10, 'endcap=round join=round') AS geom,
id
FROM line),
hexagons AS (
SELECT
ST_HexagonGrid(10, buffered.geom) AS hex,
buffered.id
FROM buffered
) SELECT * FROM hexagons;
This gives the datatype record in the column hex. This is unexpected. I expect geometry as a datatype. Why is that?
According to the documentation, the function ST_HexagonGrid returns a setof record. These records contain however a geometry attribute called geom, so in order to access the geometry of this record you have to wrap the variable with parenthesis () and call the attribute with a dot ., e.g.
SELECT (hex).geom FROM hexagons;
or just access fetch all attributes using * (in this case, i,j and geom):
SELECT (hex).* FROM hexagons;
Demo (PostGIS 3.1):
WITH j (hex) AS (
SELECT
ST_HexagonGrid(
10,ST_Buffer('LINESTRING(-105.55 41.11,-115.48 37.16,-109.29 29.38,-98.34 27.13)',1))
)
SELECT ST_AsText((hex).geom,2) FROM j;
st_astext
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLYGON((-130 34.64,-125 25.98,-115 25.98,-110 34.64,-115 43.3,-125 43.3,-130 34.64))
POLYGON((-115 25.98,-110 17.32,-100 17.32,-95 25.98,-100 34.64,-110 34.64,-115 25.98))
POLYGON((-115 43.3,-110 34.64,-100 34.64,-95 43.3,-100 51.96,-110 51.96,-115 43.3))
POLYGON((-100 34.64,-95 25.98,-85 25.98,-80 34.64,-85 43.3,-95 43.3,-100 34.64))
As ST_HexagonGrid returns a setof record, you can access the record atributes using a LATERAL as described here, or just call the function in the FROM clause:
SELECT i,j,ST_AsText(geom,2) FROM
ST_HexagonGrid(
10,ST_Buffer('LINESTRING(-105.55 41.11,-115.48 37.16,-109.29 29.38,-98.34 27.13)',1));
i | j | st_astext
----+---+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-8 | 2 | POLYGON((-130 34.64,-125 25.98,-115 25.98,-110 34.64,-115 43.3,-125 43.3,-130 34.64))
-7 | 1 | POLYGON((-115 25.98,-110 17.32,-100 17.32,-95 25.98,-100 34.64,-110 34.64,-115 25.98))
-7 | 2 | POLYGON((-115 43.3,-110 34.64,-100 34.64,-95 43.3,-100 51.96,-110 51.96,-115 43.3))
-6 | 2 | POLYGON((-100 34.64,-95 25.98,-85 25.98,-80 34.64,-85 43.3,-95 43.3,-100 34.64))
Further reading: How to divide world into cells (grid)

T-sql: Highlight invoice numbers if they occur in a payment description field

I have two sql-server tables: bills and payments. I am trying to create a VIEW to highlight the bill numbers if they occur in the payment description field. For example:
TABLE bll
|bllID | bllNum |
| -------- | -------- |
| 1 | qwerty123|
| 2 | qwerty345|
| 3 | 1234 |
TABLE payments
|paymentID | description |
| -------- | ---------------------------------- |
| 1 | payment of qwerty123 and qwerty345 |
I want to highlight both the 'qwerty123' and 'qwerty345' strings by adding html code to it. The code I have is this:
SELECT REPLACE(payments.description,
COALESCE((SELECT TOP 1 bll.bllNum
FROM bll
WHERE COALESCE(bll.bllNum, '') <> '' AND
PATINDEX('%' + bll.bllNum + '%', payments.description) > 0), ''),
'<font color=red>' +
COALESCE((SELECT TOP 1 bll.bllNum
FROM bll
WHERE COALESCE(bll.bllNum, '') <> '' AND
PATINDEX('%' + bll.bllNum + '%', payments.description) > 0), '') +
'</font>')
FROM payments
This works but only for the first occurrence of a bill number. If the description field has more than one bill number, the consecutive bill numbers are not highlighted. So in my example 'qwerty123' gets highlighted, but not 'qwerty345'
I need to highlight all occurrences. How can I accomplish this?
With the caveat that this is not a task best done in the database, one possible approach you could try is to use string_split to break your description into words and then join this to your Bills, doing your string manipulation on matching rows.
Note, according to the documentation, string_split is not 100% guaranteed to retain its correct ordering but always has in my usage. It could always be substituted for an alternative function to work on the same principle.
select string_agg (w.word,' ') [Description]
from (
select
case when exists (select * from bill b where b.billnum=s.value)
then Concat('<font colour="red">',s.value,'</font>') else s.value end word
from payments p
cross apply String_Split(description,' ')s
)w
Example DB Fiddle
Okay, I understand, I can put code in the front-end application by looping through the bill numbers and replacing them as they are found in the description. Just thought/ hoped there was a simple solution to this using t-sql. But I understand the difficulty.

EXISTS(select 1 from t1) vs EXISTS(select * from t1) [duplicate]

I used to write my EXISTS checks like this:
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE Columns=#Filters)
BEGIN
UPDATE TABLE SET ColumnsX=ValuesX WHERE Where Columns=#Filters
END
One of the DBA's in a previous life told me that when I do an EXISTS clause, use SELECT 1 instead of SELECT *
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM TABLE WHERE Columns=#Filters)
BEGIN
UPDATE TABLE SET ColumnsX=ValuesX WHERE Columns=#Filters
END
Does this really make a difference?
No, SQL Server is smart and knows it is being used for an EXISTS, and returns NO DATA to the system.
Quoth Microsoft:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189259.aspx?ppud=4
The select list of a subquery
introduced by EXISTS almost always
consists of an asterisk (*). There is
no reason to list column names because
you are just testing whether rows that
meet the conditions specified in the
subquery exist.
To check yourself, try running the following:
SELECT whatever
FROM yourtable
WHERE EXISTS( SELECT 1/0
FROM someothertable
WHERE a_valid_clause )
If it was actually doing something with the SELECT list, it would throw a div by zero error. It doesn't.
EDIT: Note, the SQL Standard actually talks about this.
ANSI SQL 1992 Standard, pg 191 http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql/sql1992.txt
3) Case:
a) If the <select list> "*" is simply contained in a <subquery> that
is immediately contained in an <exists predicate>, then the <select list> is
equivalent to a <value expression>
that is an arbitrary <literal>.
The reason for this misconception is presumably because of the belief that it will end up reading all columns. It is easy to see that this is not the case.
CREATE TABLE T
(
X INT PRIMARY KEY,
Y INT,
Z CHAR(8000)
)
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX NarrowIndex ON T(Y)
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM T)
PRINT 'Y'
Gives plan
This shows that SQL Server was able to use the narrowest index available to check the result despite the fact that the index does not include all columns. The index access is under a semi join operator which means that it can stop scanning as soon as the first row is returned.
So it is clear the above belief is wrong.
However Conor Cunningham from the Query Optimiser team explains here that he typically uses SELECT 1 in this case as it can make a minor performance difference in the compilation of the query.
The QP will take and expand all *'s
early in the pipeline and bind them to
objects (in this case, the list of
columns). It will then remove
unneeded columns due to the nature of
the query.
So for a simple EXISTS subquery like
this:
SELECT col1 FROM MyTable WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM Table2 WHERE MyTable.col1=Table2.col2) The * will be
expanded to some potentially big
column list and then it will be
determined that the semantics of the
EXISTS does not require any of those
columns, so basically all of them can
be removed.
"SELECT 1" will avoid having to
examine any unneeded metadata for that
table during query compilation.
However, at runtime the two forms of
the query will be identical and will
have identical runtimes.
I tested four possible ways of expressing this query on an empty table with various numbers of columns. SELECT 1 vs SELECT * vs SELECT Primary_Key vs SELECT Other_Not_Null_Column.
I ran the queries in a loop using OPTION (RECOMPILE) and measured the average number of executions per second. Results below
+-------------+----------+---------+---------+--------------+
| Num of Cols | * | 1 | PK | Not Null col |
+-------------+----------+---------+---------+--------------+
| 2 | 2043.5 | 2043.25 | 2073.5 | 2067.5 |
| 4 | 2038.75 | 2041.25 | 2067.5 | 2067.5 |
| 8 | 2015.75 | 2017 | 2059.75 | 2059 |
| 16 | 2005.75 | 2005.25 | 2025.25 | 2035.75 |
| 32 | 1963.25 | 1967.25 | 2001.25 | 1992.75 |
| 64 | 1903 | 1904 | 1936.25 | 1939.75 |
| 128 | 1778.75 | 1779.75 | 1799 | 1806.75 |
| 256 | 1530.75 | 1526.5 | 1542.75 | 1541.25 |
| 512 | 1195 | 1189.75 | 1203.75 | 1198.5 |
| 1024 | 694.75 | 697 | 699 | 699.25 |
+-------------+----------+---------+---------+--------------+
| Total | 17169.25 | 17171 | 17408 | 17408 |
+-------------+----------+---------+---------+--------------+
As can be seen there is no consistent winner between SELECT 1 and SELECT * and the difference between the two approaches is negligible. The SELECT Not Null col and SELECT PK do appear slightly faster though.
All four of the queries degrade in performance as the number of columns in the table increases.
As the table is empty this relationship does seem only explicable by the amount of column metadata. For COUNT(1) it is easy to see that this gets rewritten to COUNT(*) at some point in the process from the below.
SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON;
GO
SELECT COUNT(1)
FROM master..spt_values
Which gives the following plan
|--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1003]=CONVERT_IMPLICIT(int,[Expr1004],0)))
|--Stream Aggregate(DEFINE:([Expr1004]=Count(*)))
|--Index Scan(OBJECT:([master].[dbo].[spt_values].[ix2_spt_values_nu_nc]))
Attaching a debugger to the SQL Server process and randomly breaking whilst executing the below
DECLARE #V int
WHILE (1=1)
SELECT #V=1 WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM ##T) OPTION(RECOMPILE)
I found that in the cases where the table has 1,024 columns most of the time the call stack looks like something like the below indicating that it is indeed spending a large proportion of the time loading column metadata even when SELECT 1 is used (For the case where the table has 1 column randomly breaking didn't hit this bit of the call stack in 10 attempts)
sqlservr.exe!CMEDAccess::GetProxyBaseIntnl() - 0x1e2c79 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CMEDProxyRelation::GetColumn() + 0x57 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CAlgTableMetadata::LoadColumns() + 0x256 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CAlgTableMetadata::Bind() + 0x15c bytes
sqlservr.exe!CRelOp_Get::BindTree() + 0x98 bytes
sqlservr.exe!COptExpr::BindTree() + 0x58 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CRelOp_FromList::BindTree() + 0x5c bytes
sqlservr.exe!COptExpr::BindTree() + 0x58 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CRelOp_QuerySpec::BindTree() + 0xbe bytes
sqlservr.exe!COptExpr::BindTree() + 0x58 bytes
sqlservr.exe!CScaOp_Exists::BindScalarTree() + 0x72 bytes
... Lines omitted ...
msvcr80.dll!_threadstartex(void * ptd=0x0031d888) Line 326 + 0x5 bytes C
kernel32.dll!_BaseThreadStart#8() + 0x37 bytes
This manual profiling attempt is backed up by the VS 2012 code profiler which shows a very different selection of functions consuming the compilation time for the two cases (Top 15 Functions 1024 columns vs Top 15 Functions 1 column).
Both the SELECT 1 and SELECT * versions wind up checking column permissions and fail if the user is not granted access to all columns in the table.
An example I cribbed from a conversation on the heap
CREATE USER blat WITHOUT LOGIN;
GO
CREATE TABLE dbo.T
(
X INT PRIMARY KEY,
Y INT,
Z CHAR(8000)
)
GO
GRANT SELECT ON dbo.T TO blat;
DENY SELECT ON dbo.T(Z) TO blat;
GO
EXECUTE AS USER = 'blat';
GO
SELECT 1
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM T);
/* ↑↑↑↑
Fails unexpectedly with
The SELECT permission was denied on the column 'Z' of the
object 'T', database 'tempdb', schema 'dbo'.*/
GO
REVERT;
DROP USER blat
DROP TABLE T
So one might speculate that the minor apparent difference when using SELECT some_not_null_col is that it only winds up checking permissions on that specific column (though still loads the metadata for all). However this doesn't seem to fit with the facts as the percentage difference between the two approaches if anything gets smaller as the number of columns in the underlying table increases.
In any event I won't be rushing out and changing all my queries to this form as the difference is very minor and only apparent during query compilation. Removing the OPTION (RECOMPILE) so that subsequent executions can use a cached plan gave the following.
+-------------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------+
| Num of Cols | * | 1 | PK | Not Null col |
+-------------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------+
| 2 | 144933.25 | 145292 | 146029.25 | 143973.5 |
| 4 | 146084 | 146633.5 | 146018.75 | 146581.25 |
| 8 | 143145.25 | 144393.25 | 145723.5 | 144790.25 |
| 16 | 145191.75 | 145174 | 144755.5 | 146666.75 |
| 32 | 144624 | 145483.75 | 143531 | 145366.25 |
| 64 | 145459.25 | 146175.75 | 147174.25 | 146622.5 |
| 128 | 145625.75 | 143823.25 | 144132 | 144739.25 |
| 256 | 145380.75 | 147224 | 146203.25 | 147078.75 |
| 512 | 146045 | 145609.25 | 145149.25 | 144335.5 |
| 1024 | 148280 | 148076 | 145593.25 | 146534.75 |
+-------------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------+
| Total | 1454769 | 1457884.75 | 1454310 | 1456688.75 |
+-------------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------+
The test script I used can be found here
Best way to know is to performance test both versions and check out the execution plan for both versions. Pick a table with lots of columns.
There is no difference in SQL Server and it has never been a problem in SQL Server. The optimizer knows that they are the same. If you look at the execution plans, you will see that they are identical.
Personally I find it very, very hard to believe that they don't optimize to the same query plan. But the only way to know in your particular situation is to test it. If you do, please report back!
Not any real difference but there might be a very small performance hit. As a rule of thumb you should not ask for more data than you need.

Split a string and populate a table for all records in table in SQL Server 2008 R2

I have a table EmployeeMoves:
| EmployeeID | CityIDs
+------------------------------
| 24 | 23,21,22
| 25 | 25,12,14
| 29 | 1,2,5
| 31 | 7
| 55 | 11,34
| 60 | 7,9,21,23,30
I'm trying to figure out how to expand the comma-delimited values from the EmployeeMoves.CityIDs column to populate an EmployeeCities table, which should look like this:
| EmployeeID | CityID
+------------------------------
| 24 | 23
| 24 | 21
| 24 | 22
| 25 | 25
| 25 | 12
| 25 | 14
| ... and so on
I already have a function called SplitADelimitedList that splits a comma-delimited list of integers into a rowset. It takes the delimited list as a parameter. The SQL below will give me a table with split values under the column Value:
select value from dbo.SplitADelimitedList ('23,21,1,4');
| Value
+-----------
| 23
| 21
| 1
| 4
The question is: How do I populate EmployeeCities from EmployeeMoves with a single (even if complex) SQL statement using the comma-delimited list of CityIDs from each row in the EmployeeMoves table, but without any cursors or looping in T-SQL? I could have 100 records in the EmployeeMoves table for 100 different employees.
This is how I tried to solve this problem. It seems to work and is very quick in performance.
INSERT INTO EmployeeCities
SELECT
em.EmployeeID,
c.Value
FROM EmployeeMoves em
CROSS APPLY dbo.SplitADelimitedList(em.CityIDs) c;
UPDATE 1:
This update provides the definition of the user-defined function dbo.SplitADelimitedList. This function is used in above query to split a comma-delimited list to table of integer values.
CREATE FUNCTION dbo.fn_SplitADelimitedList1
(
#String NVARCHAR(MAX)
)
RETURNS #SplittedValues TABLE(
Value INT
)
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #SplitLength INT
DECLARE #Delimiter VARCHAR(10)
SET #Delimiter = ',' --set this to the delimiter you are using
WHILE len(#String) > 0
BEGIN
SELECT #SplitLength = (CASE charindex(#Delimiter, #String)
WHEN 0 THEN
datalength(#String) / 2
ELSE
charindex(#Delimiter, #String) - 1
END)
INSERT INTO #SplittedValues
SELECT cast(substring(#String, 1, #SplitLength) AS INTEGER)
WHERE
ltrim(rtrim(isnull(substring(#String, 1, #SplitLength), ''))) <> '';
SELECT #String = (CASE ((datalength(#String) / 2) - #SplitLength)
WHEN 0 THEN
''
ELSE
right(#String, (datalength(#String) / 2) - #SplitLength - 1)
END)
END
RETURN
END
Preface
This is not the right way to do it. You shouldn't create comma-delimited lists in SQL Server. This violates first normal form, which should sound like an unbelievably vile expletive to you.
It is trivial for a client-side application to select rows of employees and related cities and display this as a comma-separated list. It shouldn't be done in the database. Please do everything you can to avoid this kind of construction in the future. If at all possible, you should refactor your database.
The Right Answer
To get the list of cities, properly expanded, from a table containing lists of cities, you can do this:
INSERT dbo.EmployeeCities
SELECT
M.EmployeeID,
C.CityID
FROM
EmployeeMoves M
CROSS APPLY dbo.SplitADelimitedList(M.CityIDs) C
;
The Wrong Answer
I wrote this answer due to a misunderstanding of what you wanted: I thought you were trying to query against properly-stored data to produce a list of comma-separated CityIDs. But I realize now you wanted the reverse: to query the list of cities using existing comma-separated values already stored in a column.
WITH EmployeeData AS (
SELECT
M.EmployeeID,
M.CityID
FROM
dbo.SplitADelimitedList ('23,21,1,4') C
INNER JOIN dbo.EmployeeMoves M
ON Convert(int, C.Value) = M.CityID
)
SELECT
E.EmployeeID,
CityIDs = Substring((
SELECT ',' + Convert(varchar(max), CityID)
FROM EmployeeData C
WHERE E.EmployeeID = C.EmployeeID
FOR XML PATH (''), TYPE
).value('.[1]', 'varchar(max)'), 2, 2147483647)
FROM
(SELECT DISTINCT EmployeeID FROM EmployeeData) E
;
Part of my difficulty in understanding is that your question is a bit disorganized. Next time, please clearly label your example data and show what you have, and what you're trying to work toward. Since you put the data for EmployeeCities last, it looked like it was what you were trying to achieve. It's not a good use of people's time when questions are not laid out well.

Filter an ID Column against a range of values

I have the following SQL:
SELECT ',' + LTRIM(RTRIM(CAST(vessel_is_id as CHAR(2)))) + ',' AS 'Id'
FROM Vessels
WHERE ',' + LTRIM(RTRIM(CAST(vessel_is_id as varCHAR(2)))) + ',' IN (',1,2,3,4,5,6,')
Basically, I want to filter the vessel_is_id against a variable list of integer values (which is passed in as a varchar into the stored proc). Now, the above SQL does not work. I do have rows in the table with a `vessel__is_id' of 1, but they are not returned.
Can someone suggest a better approach to this for me? Or, if the above is OK
EDIT:
Sample data
| vessel_is_id |
| ------------ |
| 1 |
| 2 |
| 5 |
| 3 |
| 1 |
| 1 |
So I want to returned all of the above where vessel_is_id is in a variable filter i.e. '1,3' - which should return 4 records.
Cheers.
Jas.
IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.fn_ArrayToTable',N'FN') IS NOT NULL
DROP FUNCTION [dbo].[fn_ArrayToTable]
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].fn_ArrayToTable (#array VARCHAR(MAX))
-- =============================================
-- Author: Dan Andrews
-- Create date: 04/11/11
-- Description: String to Tabled-Valued Function
--
-- =============================================
RETURNS #output TABLE (data VARCHAR(256))
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #pointer INT
SET #pointer = CHARINDEX(',', #array)
WHILE #pointer != 0
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #output
SELECT RTRIM(LTRIM(LEFT(#array,#pointer-1)))
SELECT #array = RIGHT(#array, LEN(#array)-#pointer),
#pointer = CHARINDEX(',', #array)
END
RETURN
END
Which you may apply like:
SELECT * FROM dbo.fn_ArrayToTable('2,3,4,5,2,2')
and in your case:
SELECT LTRIM(RTRIM(CAST(vessel_is_id AS CHAR(2)))) AS 'Id'
FROM Vessels
WHERE LTRIM(RTRIM(CAST(vessel_is_id AS VARCHAR(2)))) IN (SELECT data FROM dbo.fn_ArrayToTable('1,2,3,4,5,6')
Since Sql server doesn't have an Array you may want to consider passing in a set of values as an XML type. You can then turn the XML type into a relation and join on it. Drawing on the time-tested pubs database for example. Of course you're client may or may not have an easy time generating the XML for the parameter value, but this approach is safe from sql-injection which most "comma seperated" value approaches are not.
declare #stateSelector xml
set #stateSelector = '<values>
<value>or</value>
<value>ut</value>
<value>tn</value>
</values>'
select * from authors
where state in ( select c.value('.', 'varchar(2)') from #stateSelector.nodes('//value') as t(c))