Order by Empty String Last on Concatenated Column - sql-server

I am trying to order a table alphabetically, ascending, with nulls last but am having problems.
The code below produces the following error:
ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if SELECT DISTINCT is specified.
select distinct
'item' = othertab..item,
'stockedFor' = tab..stocked_for
+ ', ' + tab..stockedFor2
+ ', '+ tab..stockedFor3
from tab
order by case when stockedFor is null then 1 else 0 end, stockedFor
How can I return stockedFor alphabetically and nulls last?

Just wrap it in another select statement:
select stockedFor
from (
select distinct
'stockedFor' = tab..stocked_for
+ ', ' + tab..stockedFor2
+ ', '+ tab..stockedFor3
from tab
) x
order by case when stockedFor is null then 1 else 0 end, stockedFor

Since you are removing duplicates, a workaround is to use GROUP BY to remove duplicates instead of DISTINCT. The question has changed but the method still applies if putting all columns in the SELECT in the GROUP BY.
For example:
select
'item' = othertab..item,
'stockedFor' = tab..stocked_for
+ ', ' + tab..stockedFor2
+ ', '+ tab..stockedFor3
from tab
GROUP BY othertab..item,
tab..stocked_for
+ ', ' + tab..stockedFor2
+ ', '+ tab..stockedFor3
order by case when stockedFor is null then 1 else 0 end, stockedFor

Related

Need help adding WHERE clause in pre-written SQL statement

Preface: my SQL is rudimentary. I received a SQL query from a vendor, it selects and exports every single employee comment and other data from a few different DBs as CSV meant for import, it was written by them but they're not helping with this request. The query is pulling so much data it makes a large time consuming file for import. So I want to add to / modify the query to have a "WHERE date > whateverdate" to narrow my results to recent data. For example, I want to pull only comments entered in the past 2 days.
The column I'm looking to add the clause for is the column "A.CMS502", defined as datetime. I believe this is the only relevant column in this query. An example date in this column is "2003-10-06 17:05:21.000". I am using SQL Server 2008 if it helps. Is it possible here? Thank you.
SELECT
'ID,Acct/LnNbr,NoteCreatedDate,CollectorId,ApplytoAll,Note'
UNION ALL
SELECT
ID + ',' + ID + ',' + NoteCreatedDate + ',' + CollectorId + ',' + 'No' + ',' + Note
FROM
(SELECT
CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,LEN(A.CMS301),1) = 'S'
THEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,1,LEN(A.CMS301) - 1)
ELSE A.CMS301
END + '-' +
CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,LEN(A.CMS301),1) = 'S'
THEN 'S' ELSE 'L'
END AS [ID],
REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR, A.CMS501, 10), '-', '') AS [NoteCreatedDate],
CASE WHEN U.CMS1201 IS NOT NULL
THEN U.CMS1205 + ' ' + U.CMS1204
ELSE (SELECT CMS1205 + ' ' + CMS1204 FROM sysUSER WHERE CMS1201 = 'PSUSER')
END AS CollectorId,
CAST(A.CMS512 AS NVARCHAR(MAX)) AS [Note]
FROM
ACTIVITY AS A
LEFT JOIN
sysUSER AS U ON A.CMS503 = U.CMS1201
WHERE
A.CMS504 NOT IN (411,500,511,711,804,900,901,903,907,2000,999777)
AND A.CMS504 NOT BETWEEN 1102 AND 1199) AS S
Try this, this will output last 2 days.
SELECT 'ID,Acct/LnNbr,NoteCreatedDate,CollectorId,ApplytoAll,Note'
UNION ALL
SELECT ID + ',' + ID + ',' + NoteCreatedDate + ',' + CollectorId + ',' + 'No' + ',' + Note
FROM
(
SELECT CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,LEN(A.CMS301),1) = 'S' THEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,1,LEN(A.CMS301) - 1) ELSE A.CMS301 END
+ '-' + CASE WHEN SUBSTRING(A.CMS301,LEN(A.CMS301),1) = 'S' THEN 'S' ELSE 'L'
END AS [ID]
,REPLACE(CONVERT(varchar,A.CMS501,10),'-','') AS [NoteCreatedDate]
,CASE WHEN U.CMS1201 IS NOT NULL THEN U.CMS1205 + ' ' + U.CMS1204 ELSE
(SELECT CMS1205 + ' ' + CMS1204 FROM sysUSER WHERE CMS1201 = 'PSUSER')
END AS CollectorId
,CAST(A.CMS512 AS nvarchar(max)) AS [Note]
FROM ACTIVITY AS A
LEFT JOIN sysUSER AS U
ON A.CMS503 = U.CMS1201
WHERE A.CMS504 NOT IN (411,500,511,711,804,900,901,903,907,2000,999777)
AND A.CMS504 NOT BETWEEN 1102 AND 1199
AND A.CMS502 >= DATEADD(D, -2, GETDATE())
) AS S

Concatenate columns in t-sql but exclude columns that are null

SELECT 'Column 1: ' + t.Column1 +
'Column 2: ' + t.Column2 +
'Column 3: ' + t.Column3
from Table1 t
So I need a custom string before every column like shown. However, if Column2 is null, for example, I want to exclude the entire part 'Column 2: ' + t.Column2.
Where clause to only show not null columns is not what I'm looking for, since it's valid that all 3 columns are null for some rows.
In SQL Server, concatenating null to a string will result with null. Taking advantage of that fact, you can do something like this:
SELECT ISNULL('Column 1: ' + t.Column1, '') +
ISNULL('Column 2: ' + t.Column2, '') +
ISNULL('Column 3: ' + t.Column3, '')
FROM Table
In SQL Server 2012 or higher, you can use the Concat built in function, but you still need to concatenate the columns to their hard coded description the old fashion way to take advantage of the effect described before.
SELECT CONCAT('Column 1: ' + t.Column1,
'Column 2: ' + t.Column2,
'Column 3: ' + t.Column3)
FROM Table
Assuming CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL is turned on (it is by default and should be), you can do something like:
SELECT COALESCE('Column 1: ' + t.Column1,'') +
COALESCE('Column 2: ' + t.Column2,'') +
COALESCE('Column 3: ' + t.Column3,'')
from Table1 t
If any column is NULL then 'Column name ' + Column will be NULL. COALESCE then replaces NULLs with empty strings so that the outer +s are joining non-NULL strings.

FOR XML PATH : DISTINCT sort cost increased

I'd like to put together only unique values in the concatenated string. My code is currently:
SELECT PITEM2.orderid,
(SELECT ISNULL(E.FIRSTNAME + ' ' + E.LASTNAME,' ') + ', ' AS [text()]
FROM F_PURCHASEITEM PITEM1
LEFT JOIN E__EMPLOYEE E ON e.EMPLOYEEID=PITEM1.APPROVED_BY
WHERE PITEM1.ORDERID = PITEM2.ORDERID
AND PITEM1.PISTATUS =
(SELECT POSTATUSID
FROM F_POSTATUS
WHERE POSTATUSNAME = 'Invoice Received') GROUP By ISNULL(E.FIRSTNAME + ' ' + E.LASTNAME,' ') + ', '
FOR XML PATH ('') ) [EmployeeNames]
FROM F_PURCHASEITEM PITEM2
WHERE ORDERID=305089 Group By PITEM2.orderid
This gives me the output I'd expect, but the cost of the query increased and execution plan shows the Distinct sort as 46.3%.
How can I decrease the cost for this distinct?

SQL Server build dynamic sql

I have a temp table called #temp, and I need to get all the CDate column from that table, to build a string.
The CDate list in that table is (20171209, 20171210....20171223)
I expected to see
'A.[20171209] as [20171209], A.[20171210] as [20171210],
A.[20171211] as [20171211], A.[20171212] as [20171212],
A.[20171213] as [20171213], A.[20171214] as [20171214],
A.[20171215] as [20171215], A.[20171216] as [20171216],
A.[20171217] as [20171217], A.[20171218] as [20171218],
A.[20171219] as [20171219], A.[20171220] as [20171220],
A.[20171221] as [20171221], A.[20171222] as [20171222],
A.[20171223] as [20171223], '
however the result I got is missing the first date , ie 'A.[20171209] as [20171209]'
Here is my code:
SELECT
#col2 = ISNULL(#col2 + 'A.' + QUOTENAME(CDate) + ' as ' + QUOTENAME(CDate) + ', ' , '')
FROM
(SELECT DISTINCT CDate FROM #temp) AS tmp;
Your current approach will not work in some cases, it is an undocumented feature, always use For Xml path to concatenating the rows into csv.
SET #col2 = stuff((SELECT ', A.' + Quotename(CDate) + ' as '
+ Quotename(CDate)
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT CDate
FROM #temp) a
FOR xml path('')),1,1,'')

SQL: Concatenate column values in a single row into a string separated by comma

Let's say I have a table like this in SQL Server:
Id City Province Country
1 Vancouver British Columbia Canada
2 New York null null
3 null Adama null
4 null null France
5 Winnepeg Manitoba null
6 null Quebec Canada
7 Seattle null USA
How can I get a query result so that the location is a concatenation of the City, Province, and Country separated by ", ", with nulls omitted. I'd like to ensure that there aren't any trailing comma, preceding commas, or empty strings. For example:
Id Location
1 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
2 New York
3 Adama
4 France
5 Winnepeg, Manitoba
6 Quebec, Canada
7 Seattle, USA
I think this takes care of all of the issues I spotted in other answers. No need to test the length of the output or check if the leading character is a comma, no worry about concatenating non-string types, no significant increase in complexity when other columns (e.g. Postal Code) are inevitably added...
DECLARE #x TABLE(Id INT, City VARCHAR(32), Province VARCHAR(32), Country VARCHAR(32));
INSERT #x(Id, City, Province, Country) VALUES
(1,'Vancouver','British Columbia','Canada'),
(2,'New York' , null , null ),
(3, null ,'Adama' , null ),
(4, null , null ,'France'),
(5,'Winnepeg' ,'Manitoba' , null ),
(6, null ,'Quebec' ,'Canada'),
(7,'Seattle' , null ,'USA' );
SELECT Id, Location = STUFF(
COALESCE(', ' + RTRIM(City), '')
+ COALESCE(', ' + RTRIM(Province), '')
+ COALESCE(', ' + RTRIM(Country), '')
, 1, 2, '')
FROM #x;
SQL Server 2012 added a new T-SQL function called CONCAT, but it is not useful here, since you still have to optionally include commas between discovered values, and there is no facility to do that - it just munges values together with no option for a separator. This avoids having to worry about non-string types, but doesn't allow you to handle nulls vs. non-nulls very elegantly.
select Id ,
Coalesce( City + ',' +Province + ',' + Country,
City+ ',' + Province,
Province + ',' + Country,
City+ ',' + Country,
City,
Province,
Country
) as location
from table
This is a hard problem, because the commas have to go in-between:
select id, coalesce(city+', ', '')+coalesce(province+', ', '')+coalesce(country, '')
from t
seems like it should work, but we can get an extraneous comma at the end, such as when country is NULL. So, it needs to be a bit more complicated:
select id,
(case when right(val, 2) = ', ' then left(val, len(val) - 1)
else val
end) as val
from (select id, coalesce(city+', ', '')+coalesce(province+', ', '')+coalesce(country, '') as val
from t
) t
Without a lot of intermediate logic, I think the simplest way is to add a comma to each element, and then remove any extraneous comma at the end.
Use the '+' operator.
Understand that null values don't work with the '+' operator (so for example: 'Winnepeg' + null = null), so be sure to use the ISNULL() or COALESCE() functions to replace nulls with an empty string, e.g.: ISNULL('Winnepeg','') + ISNULL(null,'').
Also, if it is even remotely possible that one of your collumns could be interpreted as a number, then be sure to use the CAST() function as well, in order to avoid error returns, e.g.: CAST('Winnepeg' as varchar(100)).
Most of the examples so far neglect one or more pieces of this. Also -- some of the examples use subqueries or do a length check, which you really ought not to do -- just not necessary -- though your optimizer might save you anyway if you do.
Good Luck
ugly but it will work for MS SQL:
select
id,
case
when right(rtrim(coalesce(city + ', ','') + coalesce(province + ', ','') + coalesce(country,'')),1)=',' then left(rtrim(coalesce(city + ', ','') + coalesce(province + ', ','') + coalesce(country,'')),LEN(rtrim(coalesce(city + ', ','') + coalesce(province + ', ','') + coalesce(country,'')))-1)
else rtrim(coalesce(city + ', ','') + coalesce(province + ', ','') + coalesce(country,''))
end
from
table
I know it's an old question, but should someone should stumble upon this today, SQL Server 2017 and later has the STRING_AGG function, with the WITHIN GROUP option :
with level1 as
(select id,city as varcharColumn,1 as columnRanking from mytable
union
select id,province,2 from mytable
union
select id,country,3 from mytable)
select STRING_AGG(varcharColumn,', ')
within group(order by columnRanking)
from level1
group by id
Should empty strings exist aside of nulls, they should be excluded with some WHERE clause in level1.
Here is an option:
SELECT (CASE WHEN City IS NULL THEN '' ELSE City + ', ' END) +
(CASE WHEN Province IS NULL THEN '' ELSE Province + ', ' END) +
(CASE WHEN Country IS NULL THEN '' ELSE Country END) AS LOCATION
FROM MYTABLE

Resources