Create SQL trigger query to dump all column changes into single variable - sql-server

For some background... I have a collection of tables, and I would like a trigger on each table for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE. SQL Server version is SQL 2005.
I have an audit table Audit that contains a column called Detail. My end goal is to create a trigger that will get the list of columns of its table, generate a dynamic select query from either Inserted, Updated, or Deleted, do some string concatenation, and dump that value into the Detail column of Audit.
This is the process I was thinking:
Get columns names in table for sys.columns
Generate dynamic sql SELECT query based on column names
Select from Inserted
foreach row in results, concatenate column values into single variable
Insert variable data into Detail column
So, the questions:
Is this the best way to accomplish what I'm looking to do? And the somewhat more important question, how do I write this query?

You could use FOR XML for this, and just store the results as an XML document.
SELECT *
FROM Inserted
FOR XML RAW
will give you attibute-centric xml, and
SELECT *
FROM Inserted
FOR XML PATH('row')
will give you element-centric xml. Much easier than trying to identify the columns and concatenate them.

Related

Use result of stored procedure to join to a table

I have a stored procedure that returns a dataset from a dynamic pivot query (meaning the pivot columns aren't know until run-time because they are driven by data).
The first column in this dataset is a product id. I want to join that product id with another product table that has all sorts of other columns that were created at design time.
So, I have a normal table with a product id column and I have a "dynamic" dataset that also has a product id column that I get from calling a stored procedure. How can I inner join those 2?
Dynamic SQL is very powerfull, but has some severe draw backs. One of them is exactly this: You cannot use its result in ad-hoc-SQL.
The only way to get the result of a SP into a table is, to create a table with a fitting schema and use the INSERT INTO NewTbl EXEC... syntax...
But there are other possibilities:
1) Use SELECT ... INTO ... FROM
Within your SP, when the dynamic SQL is executed, you could add INTO NewTbl to your select:
SELECT Col1, Col2, [...] INTO NewTbl FROM ...
This will create a table with the fitting schema automatically.
You might even hand in the name of the new table as a paramter - as it is dynamic SQL, but in this case it will be more difficult to handle the join outside (must be dynamic again).
If you need your SP to return the result, you just add SELECT * FROM NewTbl. This will return the same resultset as before.
Outside your SP you can join this table as any normal table...
BUT, there is a big BUT - ups - this sounds nasty somehow - This will fail, if the tabel exists...
So you have to drop it first, which can lead into deep troubles, if this is a multi-user application with possible concurrencies.
If not: Use IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME='NewTbl') DROP TABLE NewTbl;
If yes: Create the table with a name you pass in as parameter and do you external query dynamically with this name.
After this you can re-create this table using the SELECT ... INTO syntax...
2) Use XML
One advantage of XML is the fact, that any structure and any amount of data can be stuffed into one single column.
Let your SP return a table with one single XML column. You can - as you know the schema now - create a table and use INSERT INTO XmlTable EXEC ....
Knowing, that there will be a ProductID-element you can extract this value and create a 2-column-derived-table with the ID and the depending XML. This is easy to join.
Using wildcards in XQuery makes it possible to query XML data without knowing all the details...
3) This was my favourite: Don't use dynamic queries...

sql query to find all the updated column of a table

I need a dynamic sql query that can get a column values of a table on the basis of any case/condition. I want to do that while update any record. And I need updated value of column and for that I am using Inserted and Deleted tables of SQL Server.
I made one query which is working fine with one column but I need a generic query that should work for all of the columns.
SELECT i.name
FROM inserted i
INNER JOIN deleted d ON i.id = d.id
WHERE d.name <> i.name
With the help of above query we can get "Name" column value if it's updated. But as it's specific to one column same thing I want for all the columns of a table in which there should be no need to define any column name it should be generic/dynamic query.
I am trying to achieve that by adding one more inner join with PIVOT of "INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS" for columns but I am not sure about it whether we can do that or not by this.
SELECT COLUMN_NAME
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
WHERE TABLE_NAME LIKE '%table1%'
You can't get that kind of information using just a query. It sounds like you need to be running an update trigger. In there you can code the criteria get your columns, etc. From your question, it sounds like only one column can be updated, you are just not sure which one it will be. If multiple columns are being updated, that complicates things, but not that much
There are several ways that you can get the data you need. Off the top, I'd suggest some simple looping once you get the column names.
What has worked for me in similar scenarios is to do a simple query to INFORMAATION_SCHEMA.Columns and put the results in a table variable. From there, iterate through the table variable to get one column name at a time and run a simple dynamic query to see if the value has changed.
Hope this helps.
:{)

Why this procedure is not working?

this is my first question here. I am very new into SQL Server and T-SQL.
I would like to create a table, with a column that is using data from another column. I thought I could use select function, but it is not allowed.
How to do it?
It is very simple to create view in this way, but I would like to have a table not view.
It should look like
Column A, ColumnB,
Column C=select count(*) from [another table] where....
Could you please advise?
SELECT [COLUMN A],[COLUMN B],COUNT(*) as [COLUMN C]
INTO [destination table] FROM [another table] where...
You should use an alias
You create a table using the create table syntax because you will need to define the field names and sizes. Look the syntax up in Books Online. Do not ever use SELECT INTO unless you are creating a staging table for one-time use or a temp table. It is not a good choice for creating a new table. Plus, you don't say where any of the other columns come from except the column one, so it is may be impossible to properly set up the correct field sizes from the initial insert. Further, well frankly you should take the time to think about what columns you need and what data types they should be, it is irresponsible to avoid doing this for a table that will be permanently used.
To populate you use the Insert statement with a select instead of the values statement. If only column c come from another table, then it might be something like":
Insert table1 (colA, Colb, colC)
select 'test', 10, count(*)
from tableb
where ...
If you have to get the data from multiple tables, then you may need a join.
If you need to maintain the computed column as the values change in TableB, then you may need to write triggers on TableB or better (easier to develop and maintain and less likely to be buggy or create a data integrity problem) use a view for this instead of a separate table.

Creating a procedure for creating a table with dynamic number of columns

I'm trying to create a procedure that can create a table with not specific number of columns.
My query returns a value of 3 meaning it needs 3 columns (has to be dynamic).
I have create a #variable to set the name string of the tables but I don't know how to formulate the CREATE TABLE statement to actually create the table with the columns from this string.
Any kind of help would be appreciated guys.
You can get the columns on a table out of the sql database with
select
bb.name,
bb.colid
from sysobjects aa
inner join syscolumns bb
on aa.id = bb.id
where aa.name ='tblMyTable'
The name is the column name, the ID the number. You could select column names from the list and use dynamic sql to build a select. Not sure how you decide what columns you are after from the table.

UPSERT in SSIS

I am writing an SSIS package to run on SQL Server 2008. How do you do an UPSERT in SSIS?
IF KEY NOT EXISTS
INSERT
ELSE
IF DATA CHANGED
UPDATE
ENDIF
ENDIF
See SQL Server 2008 - Using Merge From SSIS. I've implemented something like this, and it was very easy. Just using the BOL page Inserting, Updating, and Deleting Data using MERGE was enough to get me going.
Apart from T-SQL based solutions (and this is not even tagged as sql/tsql), you can use an SSIS Data Flow Task with a Merge Join as described here (and elsewhere).
The crucial part is the Full Outer Join in the Merger Join (if you only want to insert/update and not delete a Left Outer Join works as well) of your sorted sources.
followed by a Conditional Split to know what to do next: Insert into the destination (which is also my source here), update it (via SQL Command), or delete from it (again via SQL Command).
INSERT: If the gid is found only on the source (left)
UPDATE If the gid exists on both the source and destination
DELETE: If the gid is not found in the source but exists in the destination (right)
I would suggest you to have a look at Mat Stephen's weblog on SQL Server's upsert.
SQL 2005 - UPSERT: In nature but not by name; but at last!
Another way to create an upsert in sql (if you have pre-stage or stage tables):
--Insert Portion
INSERT INTO FinalTable
( Colums )
SELECT T.TempColumns
FROM TempTable T
WHERE
(
SELECT 'Bam'
FROM FinalTable F
WHERE F.Key(s) = T.Key(s)
) IS NULL
--Update Portion
UPDATE FinalTable
SET NonKeyColumn(s) = T.TempNonKeyColumn(s)
FROM TempTable T
WHERE FinalTable.Key(s) = T.Key(s)
AND CHECKSUM(FinalTable.NonKeyColumn(s)) <> CHECKSUM(T.NonKeyColumn(s))
The basic Data Manipulation Language (DML) commands that have been in use over the years are Update, Insert and Delete. They do exactly what you expect: Insert adds new records, Update modifies existing records and Delete removes records.
UPSERT statement modifies existing records, if a records is not present it INSERTS new records.
The functionality of UPSERT statment can be acheived by two new set of TSQL operators. These are the two new ones
EXCEPT
INTERSECT
Except:-
Returns any distinct values from the query to the left of the EXCEPT operand that are not also returned from the right query
Intersect:-
Returns any distinct values that are returned by both the query on the left and right sides of the INTERSECT operand.
Example:- Lets say we have two tables Table 1 and Table 2
Table_1 column name(Number, datatype int)
----------
1
2
3
4
5
Table_2 column name(Number, datatype int)
----------
1
2
5
SELECT * FROM TABLE_1 EXCEPT SELECT * FROM TABLE_2
will return 3,4 as it is present in Table_1 not in Table_2
SELECT * FROM TABLE_1 INTERSECT SELECT * FROM TABLE_2
will return 1,2,5 as they are present in both tables Table_1 and Table_2.
All the pains of Complex joins are now eliminated :-)
To use this functionality in SSIS, all you need to do add an "Execute SQL" task and put the code in there.
I usually prefer to let SSIS engine to manage delta merge. Only new items are inserted and changed are updated.
If your destination Server does not have enough resources to manage heavy query, this method allow to use resources of your SSIS server.
We can use slowly changing dimension component in SSIS to upsert.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/integration-services/data-flow/transformations/configure-outputs-using-the-slowly-changing-dimension-wizard?view=sql-server-ver15
I would use the 'slow changing dimension' task

Resources