how to select data row from a comma separated value field - sql-server

Question

My question is not exactly but similar to this question
How to SELECT parts from a comma-separated field with a LIKE statement
but i have not seen any answer there. So I am posting my question again.
i have the following table
╔════════════╦═════════════╗
║ VacancyId ║ Media ║
╠════════════╬═════════════╣
║ 1 ║ 32,26,30 ║
║ 2 ║ 31, 25,20 ║
║ 3 ║ 21,32,23 ║
╚════════════╩═════════════╝
I want to select data who has media id=30 or media=21 or media= 40
So in this case the output will return the 1st and the third row.
How can I do that ?
I have tried media like '30' but that does not return any value. Plus i just dont need to search for one string in that field .
My database is SQL Server
Thank you

Answer 1

It's never good to use the comma separated values to store in database if it is feasible try to make separate tables to store them as most probably this is 1:n relationship.
If this is not feasible then there are following possible ways you can do this,
If your number of values to match are going to stay same, then you might want to do the series of Like statement along with OR/AND depending on your requirement.
Ex.-
WHERE
Media LIKE '%21%'
OR Media LIKE '%30%'
OR Media LIKE '%40%'
However above query will likely to catch all the values which contains 21 so even if columns with values like 1210,210 will also be returned. To overcome this you can do following trick which is hamper the performance as it uses functions in where clause and that goes against making Seargable queries.
But here it goes,
--Declare valueSearch variable first to value to match for you can do this for multiple values using multiple variables.
Declare #valueSearch = '21'
-- Then do the matching in where clause
WHERE
(',' + RTRIM(Media) + ',') LIKE '%,' + #valueSearch + ',%'
If the number of values to match are going to change then you might want to look into FullText Index and you should thinking about the same.
And if you decide to go with this after Fulltext Index you can do as below to get what you want,
Ex.-
WHERE
CONTAINS(Media, '"21" OR "30" OR "40"')

Answer 2

The best possible way i can suggest is first you have do comma separated value to table using This link and you will end up with table looks like below.
SELECT * FROM Table
WHERE Media in('30','28')
It will surely works.

Answer 3

You can use this, but the performance is inevitably poor. You should, as others have said, normalise this structure.
WHERE
',' + media + ',' LIKE '%,21,%'
OR ',' + media + ',' LIKE '%,30,%'
Etc, etc...

Answer 4

If you are certain that any Media value containing the string 30 will be one you wish to return, you just need to include wildcards in your LIKE statement:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE Media LIKE '%30%'
Bear in mind though that this would also return a record with a Media value of 298,300,302 for example, so if this is problematic for you, you'll need to consider a more sophisticated method, like:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE Media LIKE '%,30,%'
OR Media LIKE '30,%'
OR Media LIKE '%,30'
OR Media = '30'
If there might be spaces in the strings (as per in your question), you'll also want to strip these out:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE REPLACE(Media,' ','') LIKE '%,30,%'
OR REPLACE(Media,' ','') LIKE '30,%'
OR REPLACE(Media,' ','') LIKE '%,30'
OR REPLACE(Media,' ','') = '30'
Edit: I actually prefer Coder of Code's solution to this:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE ',' + LTRIM(RTRIM(REPLACE(Media,' ',''))) + ',' LIKE '%,30,%'
You mention that would wish to search for multiple strings in this field, which is also possible:
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE Media LIKE '%30%'
OR Media LIKE '%28%'
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE Media LIKE '%30%'
AND Media LIKE '%28%'

Answer 5

I agree not a good idea comma seperated values stored like that. Bu if you have to;
I think using inline function is will give better performance;
Select VacancyId, Media from (
Select 1 as VacancyId, '32,26,30' as Media
union all
Select 2, '31,25,20'
union all
Select 3, '21,32,23'
) asa
CROSS APPLY dbo.udf_StrToTable(Media, ',') tbl
where CAST(tbl.Result as int) in (30,21,40)
Group by VacancyId, Media
Output is;
VacancyId Media
----------- ---------
1 32,26,30
3 21,32,23
and our inline function script is;
if exists (select * from dbo.sysobjects where id = object_id(N'[dbo].[udf_StrToTable]') and xtype in (N'FN', N'IF', N'TF'))
drop function [dbo].udf_StrToTable
GO
CREATE FUNCTION udf_StrToTable (#List NVARCHAR(MAX), #Delimiter NVARCHAR(1))
RETURNS TABLE
With Encryption
AS
RETURN
( WITH Split(stpos,endpos)
AS(
SELECT 0 AS stpos, CHARINDEX(#Delimiter,#List) AS endpos
UNION ALL
SELECT CAST(endpos+1 as int), CHARINDEX(#Delimiter,#List,endpos+1)
FROM Split
WHERE endpos > 0
)
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 1)) as inx,
SUBSTRING(#List,stpos,COALESCE(NULLIF(endpos,0),LEN(#List)+1)-stpos) Result
FROM Split
)
GO

Answer 6

This solution uses a RECURSIVE CTE to identify the position of each comma within the string then uses SUBSTRING to return all strings between the commas.
I've left some unnecessary code in place to help you get you head round what it's doing. You can strip it down to provide exactly what you need.
DROP TABLE #TMP
CREATE TABLE #TMP(ID INT, Vals CHAR(100))
INSERT INTO #TMP(ID,VALS)
VALUES
(1,'32,26,30')
,(2,'31, 25,20')
,(3,'21,32,23')
;WITH cte
AS
(
SELECT
ID
,VALS
,0 POS
,CHARINDEX(',',VALS,0) REM
FROM
#TMP
UNION ALL
SELECT ID,VALS,REM,CHARINDEX(',',VALS,REM+1)
FROM
cte c
WHERE CHARINDEX(',',VALS,REM+1) > 0
UNION ALL
SELECT ID,VALS,REM,LEN(VALS)
FROM
cte c
WHERE POS+1 < LEN(VALS) AND CHARINDEX(',',VALS,REM+1) = 0
)
,cte_Clean
AS
(
SELECT ID,CAST(REPLACE(LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(VALS,POS+1,REM-POS))),',','') AS INT) AS VAL FROM cte
WHERE POS <> REM
)
SELECT
ID
FROM
cte_Clean
WHERE
VAL = 32
ORDER BY ID