Passing a varchar full of comma delimited values t

Question

Duplicate of
Dynamic SQL Comma Delimited Value Query
Parameterized Queries with Like and In

I have a SQL Server Stored Procedure where I would like to pass a varchar full of comma delimited values to an IN function. For example:

DECLARE @Ids varchar(50);
SET @Ids = '1,2,3,5,4,6,7,98,234';

SELECT * 
FROM sometable 
WHERE tableid IN (@Ids);

This does not work of course. I get the error:

Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '1,2,3,5,4,6,7,98,234' to data type int.

How can I accomplish this (or something relatively similar) without resorting to building dynamic SQL?

Answer 1

Try this:

SELECT ProductId, Name, Tags  
FROM Product  
WHERE '1,2,3,' LIKE '%' + CAST(ProductId AS VARCHAR(20)) + ',%'; 

As said on the last example of this link

Answer 2

No Table No Function No Loop

Building on the idea of parsing your list into a table our DBA suggested using XML.

Declare @Ids varchar(50)
Set @Ids = ‘1,2,3,5,4,6,7,98,234’

DECLARE @XML XML
SET @XML = CAST('<i>' + REPLACE(@Ids, ',', '</i><i>') + '</i>' AS XML)

SELECT * 
FROM
    SomeTable 
    INNER JOIN @XML.nodes('i') x(i) 
        ON  SomeTable .Id = x.i.value('.', 'VARCHAR(MAX)')

These seems to have the same performance as @KM's answer but, I think, a lot simpler.

Answer 3

It's a very common question. Canned answer, several nice techniques:

http://www.sommarskog.se/arrays-in-sql-2005.html

Answer 4

I've written a stored procedure to show how to do this before. You basically have to process the string. I tried to post the code here but the formatting got all screwy.

IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM dbo.sysobjects WHERE id = object_id(N'[dbo].[uspSplitTextList]') AND OBJECTPROPERTY(id, N'IsProcedure') = 1)
   DROP PROCEDURE [dbo].[uspSplitTextList]
GO

SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON 
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON 
GO


/* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ */
-- uspSplitTextList
--
-- Description:
--    splits a separated list of text items and returns the text items
--
-- Arguments:
--    @list_text        - list of text items
--    @Delimiter        - delimiter
--
-- Notes:
-- 02/22/2006 - WSR : use DATALENGTH instead of LEN throughout because LEN doesn't count trailing blanks
--
-- History:
-- 02/22/2006 - WSR : revised algorithm to account for items crossing 8000 character boundary
-- 09/18/2006 - WSR : added to this project
--
CREATE PROCEDURE uspSplitTextList
   @list_text           text,
   @Delimiter           varchar(3)
AS

SET NOCOUNT ON

DECLARE @InputLen       integer         -- input text length
DECLARE @TextPos        integer         -- current position within input text
DECLARE @Chunk          varchar(8000)   -- chunk within input text
DECLARE @ChunkPos       integer         -- current position within chunk
DECLARE @DelimPos       integer         -- position of delimiter
DECLARE @ChunkLen       integer         -- chunk length
DECLARE @DelimLen       integer         -- delimiter length
DECLARE @ItemBegPos     integer         -- item starting position in text
DECLARE @ItemOrder      integer         -- item order in list
DECLARE @DelimChar      varchar(1)      -- first character of delimiter (simple delimiter)

-- create table to hold list items
-- actually their positions because we may want to scrub this list eliminating bad entries before substring is applied
CREATE TABLE #list_items ( item_order integer, item_begpos integer, item_endpos integer )

-- process list
IF @list_text IS NOT NULL
   BEGIN

   -- initialize
   SET @InputLen = DATALENGTH(@list_text)
   SET @TextPos = 1
   SET @DelimChar = SUBSTRING(@Delimiter, 1, 1)
   SET @DelimLen = DATALENGTH(@Delimiter)
   SET @ItemBegPos = 1
   SET @ItemOrder = 1
   SET @ChunkLen = 1

   -- cycle through input processing chunks
   WHILE @TextPos <= @InputLen AND @ChunkLen <> 0
      BEGIN

      -- get current chunk
      SET @Chunk = SUBSTRING(@list_text, @TextPos, 8000)

      -- setup initial variable values
      SET @ChunkPos = 1
      SET @ChunkLen = DATALENGTH(@Chunk)
      SET @DelimPos = CHARINDEX(@DelimChar, @Chunk, @ChunkPos)

      -- loop over the chunk, until the last delimiter
      WHILE @ChunkPos <= @ChunkLen AND @DelimPos <> 0
         BEGIN

         -- see if this is a full delimiter
         IF SUBSTRING(@list_text, (@TextPos + @DelimPos - 1), @DelimLen) = @Delimiter
            BEGIN

            -- insert position
            INSERT INTO #list_items (item_order, item_begpos, item_endpos)
            VALUES (@ItemOrder, @ItemBegPos, (@TextPos + @DelimPos - 1) - 1)

            -- adjust positions
            SET @ItemOrder = @ItemOrder + 1
            SET @ItemBegPos = (@TextPos + @DelimPos - 1) + @DelimLen
            SET @ChunkPos = @DelimPos + @DelimLen

            END
         ELSE
            BEGIN

            -- adjust positions
            SET @ChunkPos = @DelimPos + 1

            END

         -- find next delimiter      
         SET @DelimPos = CHARINDEX(@DelimChar, @Chunk, @ChunkPos)

         END

      -- adjust positions
      SET @TextPos = @TextPos + @ChunkLen

      END

   -- handle last item
   IF @ItemBegPos <= @InputLen
      BEGIN

      -- insert position
      INSERT INTO #list_items (item_order, item_begpos, item_endpos)
      VALUES (@ItemOrder, @ItemBegPos, @InputLen)

      END

   -- delete the bad items
   DELETE FROM #list_items
   WHERE item_endpos < item_begpos

   -- return list items
   SELECT SUBSTRING(@list_text, item_begpos, (item_endpos - item_begpos + 1)) AS item_text, item_order, item_begpos, item_endpos
   FROM #list_items
   ORDER BY item_order

   END

DROP TABLE #list_items

RETURN

/* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ */

GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER OFF 
GO
SET ANSI_NULLS ON 
GO

Answer 5

Its been a while but I have done this in the past using XML as a interim.

I can't take any credit for this, but I'm afraid I no longer know where I got this idea from:

-- declare the variables needed
DECLARE @xml as xml,@str as varchar(100),@delimiter as varchar(10)

-- The string you want to split
SET @str='A,B,C,D,E,Bert,Ernie,1,2,3,4,5'

-- What you want to split on. Can be a single character or a string
SET @delimiter =','

-- Convert it to an XML document
SET @xml = cast(('<X>'+replace(@str,@delimiter ,'</X><X>')+'</X>') as xml)

-- Select back from the XML
SELECT N.value('.', 'varchar(10)') as value FROM @xml.nodes('X') as T(N)

Answer 6

,,,,B') returns: ListValue ----------- 1 12 123 1234 54321 6 A *