I have to run a query in SQL Server using data from a MySQL database. When I needed to do the opposite, I found an easy way to accomplish what I needed writing an update query using the select statement in SQL Server.
In SQL Server I wrote:
SELECT 'update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = ' + cast(MSSQLCol1 as varchar(max)) + ' where MySQLCol2 = ' + cast(MSSQLCol2 as varchar(max)) + ';' FROM MSSQLTable
That resulted in a bunch of update statements with the keys I needed like:
'update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = 12 where MySQLCol2 = 45;
But when I tried to do the same in MySQL I got a bunch of syntax errors. The web told me MySQL don't need the + operator to concatenate strings in a sentence, but it didn't work, neither writing the concatenate function explicitly. Any ideas?
You can use the CONCAT function which is available in MySQL as well as in SQL, like this:
SELECT CONCAT('update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = ' , MSSQLCol1 , ' where MySQLCol2 = ' , MSSQLCol2 , ';' )FROM MSSQLTable
Now in the above solution you need to take care of the blank space after or before or even after and before the statement.
For tackling the above situation what you can do is to use the function CONCAT_WS, which is available in MySQL as well as in SQL:
SELECT CONCAT_WS(' ', 'update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 =' , MSSQLCol1 , 'where MySQLCol2 =' , MSSQLCol2 , ';' )FROM MSSQLTable
CONCAT_WS function adds two or more strings together with a separator.
Now no need to take care of the spaces that you need to put to avoid the syntax error anymore.
Please note that, CONCAT_WS is going to handle null as well. But in case of CONCAT, if any of the variable/field is null then the entire CONCATENATED result becomes null.
Here's how you can do it
SELECT concat("update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = ",MSSQLCol1,"where MySQLCol2 = ",MSSQLCol2,";") FROM MSSQLTable;
Both SQL Server and mysql have got CONCAT function.
You can use the below query in both RDBMS.
SELECT CONCAT('update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = ' , MSSQLCol1 , ' where MySQLCol2 = ' , MSSQLCol2 , ';' )FROM MSSQLTable
You may try concat to concatenate your string.
Example as:
SELECT CONCAT('MySQL CAST example #',CAST(2 AS CHAR));
#ouput
MySQL CAST example #2
In your above update query your set and where column may have varchar, but if you closely look into your query ' is missing in both of the column names. Please try the below query.
SELECT CONCAT('update sgidb.Example set MySQLCol1 = ''',
CAST(MSSQLCol1 AS VARCHAR(MAX)),
''' where MySQLCol2 = ''',
CAST(MSSQLCol2 AS VARCHAR(MAX)) ,
''';' )
FROM MSSQLTable;
I know that there are several ways to find which row's column contains a string, like using [column name] regexp ' ' or [column name] like ' '
while currently what I need some help is I have a table with several columns, all of there are varchar or text and I am not sure which column contains a certain string. Just say that I want to search a "xxx from a table. Several different columns could contain this string or not. Is there a way that I could find which column contains this string?
I have a thinking and the solution could be
select * from [table name] where [column1] regexp 'xxx' or
[column2] regexp 'xxx' or ...... [column39] regexp 'xxx' or .....
[colum60] regexp 'xxx' or ... or [column 80] regexp 'xxx';
I do not want the query like this. Is there another effective way?
To give a better example, say that we are searching for a table that belongs to a blog.
We have title, URL, content, key words, tag, comment and so on. Now we just say, if any blog article is related to "database-normalization", this word may appear in the title, URL or content or anywhere, and I do not want to write it one by one like
where title regexp 'database-normalization' or content regexp 'database-normalization' or url regexp 'database-normalization'......
as when there are hundreds columns, I need to write a hundred, or in this case is there an effective way instead of write hundred or statement? Like using if-else or collections or some others to build the query.
If you want a pure dynamic way, you can try this. I've tried it long back on sql-server and hope it may help you.
#TMP_TABLE -- a temporary table
- PK, IDENTITY
- TABLE_NAME
- COLUMN_NAME
- IS_EXIST
INSERT INTO #TMP_TABLE (TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME)
SELECT C.TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS C
WHERE C.TABLE_NAME = <your-table> AND C.DATA_TYPE = 'varchar'; -- you can modify it to handle multiple table at once.
-- boundaries
SET #MINID = (SELECT ISNULL(MIN(<PK>),0) FROM #TMP_TABLE );
SET #MAXID = (SELECT ISNULL(MAX(<PK>),0) FROM #TMP_TABLE );
WHILE ((#MINID<=#MAXID) AND (#MINID<>0))
BEGIN
SELECT #TABLE_NAME = TABLE_NAME,#COLUMN_NAME = COLUMN_NAME
FROM #TMP_TABLE
WHERE <PK> = #MINID;
SET #sqlString = ' UPDATE #TMP_TABLE
SET IS_EXIST = 1
WHERE EXIST (SELECT 1 FROM '+ #TABLE_NAME+' WHERE '+ #COLUMN_NAME +' = ''demo.webstater.com'') AND <PK> = '+ #MINID;
EXEC(#sql) ;
SET #MINID = (SELECT MIN(<PK>) FROM #TMP_TABLE WHERE <PK> > #MINID );
END
SELECT * FROM #TMP_TABLE WHERE IS_EXIST = 1 ; -- will give you matched results.
If you know the columns in advance, what you proposed is probably the most effective way (if a little verbose).
Otherwise, you could get the column names from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS and construct dynamic SQL based on that.
His question is not to query specific columns with like clause. He has been asking to apply same pattern across columns dynamically.
Example: Table having 3 columns - FirstName, LastName, Address and pattern matching is "starts with A" then resulting query should be:
Select * From Customer where FirstName like 'A%" or LastName like 'A%" or Address like 'A%'
If you want to build query in business layer, this could easily be done with reflection along with EF.
If you are motivated to do in database then you can achieve by building query dynamically and then execute through sp_executesql.
Try this (Just pass tablename and the string to be find)-:
create proc usp_findString
#tablename varchar(500),
#string varchar(max)
as
Begin
Declare #sql2 varchar(max),#sql nvarchar(max)
SELECT #sql2=
STUFF((SELECT ', case when '+QUOTENAME(NAME)+'='''+#string+''' then 1 else 0 end as '+NAME
FROM (select a.name from sys.columns a join sys.tables b on a.[object_id]=b.[object_id] where b.name=#tablename) T1
--WHERE T1.ID=T2.ID
FOR XML PATH('')),1,1,'')
--print #string
set #sql='select '+#sql2+' from '+#tablename
print #sql
EXEC sp_executesql #sql
End
SQL Server 2014
One way is to use CASE to check the substring existence with LOCATE in mysql and return the column but all you have to check in every column of the table as below:
CREATE TABLE test(col1 VARCHAR(1000), col2 VARCHAR(1000), col3 VARCHAR(1000))
INSERT INTO test VALUES
('while currently what I need some help is I have a table with 10 columns',
'contains a certain string. Just say that I want to search a table',
'contains a certain string demo.webstater.com')
SELECT (CASE WHEN LOCATE('demo.webstater.com', col1, 1) > 0 THEN 'col1'
WHEN LOCATE('demo.webstater.com', col2, 1) > 0 THEN 'col2'
WHEN LOCATE('demo.webstater.com', col3, 1) > 0 THEN 'col3'
END) whichColumn
FROM test
OUTPUT:
whichColumn
col3
There are many ways in which you can do your analysis. You can use "LIKE A%%" if it starts from A in SQL, "REGEX" LibrarY for multiple checks.
I've got a table field membername which contains both the last name and the first name of users. Is it possible to split those into 2 fields memberfirst, memberlast?
All the records have this format "Firstname Lastname" (without quotes and a space in between).
Unfortunately MySQL does not feature a split string function. However you can create a user defined function for this, such as the one described in the following article:
MySQL Split String Function by Federico Cargnelutti
With that function:
DELIMITER $$
CREATE FUNCTION SPLIT_STR(
x VARCHAR(255),
delim VARCHAR(12),
pos INT
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(255) DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
RETURN REPLACE(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX(x, delim, pos),
LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(x, delim, pos -1)) + 1),
delim, '');
END$$
DELIMITER ;
you would be able to build your query as follows:
SELECT SPLIT_STR(membername, ' ', 1) as memberfirst,
SPLIT_STR(membername, ' ', 2) as memberlast
FROM users;
If you prefer not to use a user defined function and you do not mind the query to be a bit more verbose, you can also do the following:
SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(membername, ' ', 1), ' ', -1) as memberfirst,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(membername, ' ', 2), ' ', -1) as memberlast
FROM users;
SELECT variant (not creating a user defined function):
SELECT IF(
LOCATE(' ', `membername`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`membername`, 1, LOCATE(' ', `membername`) - 1),
`membername`
) AS memberfirst,
IF(
LOCATE(' ', `membername`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`membername`, LOCATE(' ', `membername`) + 1),
NULL
) AS memberlast
FROM `user`;
This approach also takes care of:
membername values without a space: it will add the whole string to memberfirst and sets memberlast to NULL.
membername values that have multiple spaces: it will add everything before the first space to memberfirst and the remainder (including additional spaces) to memberlast.
The UPDATE version would be:
UPDATE `user` SET
`memberfirst` = IF(
LOCATE(' ', `membername`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`membername`, 1, LOCATE(' ', `membername`) - 1),
`membername`
),
`memberlast` = IF(
LOCATE(' ', `membername`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`membername`, LOCATE(' ', `membername`) + 1),
NULL
);
It seems that existing responses are over complicated or not a strict answer to the particular question.
I think, the simple answer is the following query:
SELECT
SUBSTRING_INDEX(`membername`, ' ', 1) AS `memberfirst`,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(`membername`, ' ', -1) AS `memberlast`
;
I think it is not necessary to deal with more-than-two-word names in this particular situation. If you want to do it properly, splitting can be very hard or even impossible in some cases:
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Edgar Allan Poe
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Petőfi Sándor
Virág Vendelné Farkas Margit
黒澤 明
In a properly designed database, human names should be stored both in parts and in whole. This is not always possible, of course.
If your plan is to do this as part of a query, please don't do that (a). Seriously, it's a performance killer. There may be situations where you don't care about performance (such as one-off migration jobs to split the fields allowing better performance in future) but, if you're doing this regularly for anything other than a mickey-mouse database, you're wasting resources.
If you ever find yourself having to process only part of a column in some way, your DB design is flawed. It may well work okay on a home address book or recipe application or any of myriad other small databases but it will not be scalable to "real" systems.
Store the components of the name in separate columns. It's almost invariably a lot faster to join columns together with a simple concatenation (when you need the full name) than it is to split them apart with a character search.
If, for some reason you cannot split the field, at least put in the extra columns and use an insert/update trigger to populate them. While not 3NF, this will guarantee that the data is still consistent and will massively speed up your queries. You could also ensure that the extra columns are lower-cased (and indexed if you're searching on them) at the same time so as to not have to fiddle around with case issues.
And, if you cannot even add the columns and triggers, be aware (and make your client aware, if it's for a client) that it is not scalable.
(a) Of course, if your intent is to use this query to fix the schema so that the names are placed into separate columns in the table rather than the query, I'd consider that to be a valid use. But I reiterate, doing it in the query is not really a good idea.
use this
SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX( `membername` , ' ', 2 ),' ',1) AS b,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX( `membername` , ' ', -1 ),' ',2) AS c FROM `users` WHERE `userid`='1'
In MySQL this is working this option:
SELECT Substring(nameandsurname, 1, Locate(' ', nameandsurname) - 1) AS
firstname,
Substring(nameandsurname, Locate(' ', nameandsurname) + 1) AS lastname
FROM emp
Not exactly answering the question, but faced with the same problem I ended up doing this:
UPDATE people_exit SET last_name = SUBSTRING_INDEX(fullname,' ',-1)
UPDATE people_exit SET middle_name = TRIM(SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX(fullname,last_name,1),' ',-2))
UPDATE people_exit SET middle_name = '' WHERE CHAR_LENGTH(middle_name)>3
UPDATE people_exit SET first_name = SUBSTRING_INDEX(fullname,concat(middle_name,' ',last_name),1)
UPDATE people_exit SET first_name = middle_name WHERE first_name = ''
UPDATE people_exit SET middle_name = '' WHERE first_name = middle_name
The only case where you may want such a function is an UPDATE query which will alter your table to store Firstname and Lastname into separate fields.
Database design must follow certain rules, and Database Normalization is among most important ones
I had a column where the first and last name were both were in one column. The first and last name were separated by a comma. The code below worked. There is NO error checking/correction. Just a dumb split. Used phpMyAdmin to execute the SQL statement.
UPDATE tblAuthorList SET AuthorFirst = SUBSTRING_INDEX(AuthorLast,',',-1) , AuthorLast = SUBSTRING_INDEX(AuthorLast,',',1);
13.2.10 UPDATE Syntax
This takes smhg from here and curt's from Last index of a given substring in MySQL and combines them. This is for mysql, all I needed was to get a decent split of name to first_name last_name with the last name a single word, the first name everything before that single word, where the name could be null, 1 word, 2 words, or more than 2 words. Ie: Null; Mary; Mary Smith; Mary A. Smith; Mary Sue Ellen Smith;
So if name is one word or null, last_name is null. If name is > 1 word, last_name is last word, and first_name all words before last word.
Note that I've already trimmed off stuff like Joe Smith Jr. ; Joe Smith Esq. and so on, manually, which was painful, of course, but it was small enough to do that, so you want to make sure to really look at the data in the name field before deciding which method to use.
Note that this also trims the outcome, so you don't end up with spaces in front of or after the names.
I'm just posting this for others who might google their way here looking for what I needed. This works, of course, test it with the select first.
It's a one time thing, so I don't care about efficiency.
SELECT TRIM(
IF(
LOCATE(' ', `name`) > 0,
LEFT(`name`, LENGTH(`name`) - LOCATE(' ', REVERSE(`name`))),
`name`
)
) AS first_name,
TRIM(
IF(
LOCATE(' ', `name`) > 0,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(`name`, ' ', -1) ,
NULL
)
) AS last_name
FROM `users`;
UPDATE `users` SET
`first_name` = TRIM(
IF(
LOCATE(' ', `name`) > 0,
LEFT(`name`, LENGTH(`name`) - LOCATE(' ', REVERSE(`name`))),
`name`
)
),
`last_name` = TRIM(
IF(
LOCATE(' ', `name`) > 0,
SUBSTRING_INDEX(`name`, ' ', -1) ,
NULL
)
);
Method I used to split first_name into first_name and last_name when the data arrived all in the first_name field. This will put only the last word in the last name field, so "john phillips sousa" will be "john phillips" first name and "sousa" last name. It also avoids overwriting any records that have been fixed already.
set last_name=trim(SUBSTRING_INDEX(first_name, ' ', -1)), first_name=trim(SUBSTRING(first_name,1,length(first_name) - length(SUBSTRING_INDEX(first_name, ' ', -1)))) where list_id='$List_ID' and length(first_name)>0 and length(trim(last_name))=0
UPDATE `salary_generation_tbl` SET
`modified_by` = IF(
LOCATE('$', `other_salary_string`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`other_salary_string`, 1, LOCATE('$', `other_salary_string`) - 1),
`other_salary_string`
),
`other_salary` = IF(
LOCATE('$', `other_salary_string`) > 0,
SUBSTRING(`other_salary_string`, LOCATE('$', `other_salary_string`) + 1),
NULL
);
In case someone needs to run over a table and split a field:
First we use the function mention above:
CREATE DEFINER=`root`#`localhost` FUNCTION `fn_split_str`($str VARCHAR(800), $delimiter VARCHAR(12), $position INT) RETURNS varchar(800) CHARSET utf8
DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
RETURN REPLACE(
SUBSTRING(
SUBSTRING_INDEX($str, $delimiter, $position),
LENGTH(
SUBSTRING_INDEX($str, $delimiter, $position -1)
) + 1
),
$delimiter, '');
END
Second, we run in a while loop on the string until there isn't any results (I've added $id for JOIN clause):
CREATE DEFINER=`root`#`localhost` FUNCTION `fn_split_str_to_rows`($id INT, $str VARCHAR(800), $delimiter VARCHAR(12), $empty_table BIT) RETURNS int(11)
BEGIN
DECLARE position INT;
DECLARE val VARCHAR(800);
SET position = 1;
IF $empty_table THEN
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS tmp_rows;
END IF;
SET val = fn_split_str($str, ',', position);
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE IF NOT EXISTS tmp_rows AS (SELECT $id as id, val as val where 1 = 2);
WHILE (val IS NOT NULL and val != '') DO
INSERT INTO tmp_rows
SELECT $id, val;
SET position = position + 1;
SET val = fn_split_str($str, ',', position);
END WHILE;
RETURN position - 1;
END
Finally we can use it like that:
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS tmp_rows;
SELECT SUM(fn_split_str_to_rows(ID, FieldToSplit, ',', 0))
FROM MyTable;
SELECT * FROM tmp_rows;
You can use the id to join to other table.
In case you are only splitting one value you can use it like that
SELECT fn_split_str_to_rows(null, 'AAA,BBB,CCC,DDD,EEE,FFF,GGG', ',', 1);
SELECT * FROM tmp_rows;
We don't need to empty the temporary table, the function will take care of that.
mysql 5.4 provides a native split function:
SPLIT_STR(<column>, '<delimiter>', <index>)