I have inherited a system which seemingly requires me to use a cursor or while loop.
Given the below tables, I would like to get the names of the attendees e.g
BillBobJaneJill
Attendees
SourceTable|SourceTableIdBoys |1Boys |2Girls |2Girls |1
Boys
Id|FirstName1 |Bill2 |Bob
Girls
Id|FirstName1 |Jill2 |Jane
Note, the system doesn't actually use Attendees,Boys & Girls but rather uses Contracts, Orders and other such entities etc but it was easier\simpler to represent in this form.
There may be loads more lookup tables than just "boy" and "girl" so
Is there anyway I can achieve this by not using cursors or other row based operations.
If I understand this query should work:
SELECT FirstName
FROM Attendees
join Boys on id = SourceTableId
WHERE SourceTable = 'Boys'
union all
SELECT FirstName
FROM Attendees
join Girls on id = SourceTableId
WHERE SourceTable = 'Girls'
A union is probably the only way you're going to do this, probably encapsulated in a view. If you can get a list of the tables then you could write a code generator that generates the view. If necessary put the view in a different database or schema on the same server if the vendor won't allow you to put it in the application DB.
Can you programatically identify the tables and columns you need or get a list from somewhere?
Related
I have an sql server database that has multiple tables that are all related to each other.
I am wondering is it possible to use FreeTextTable or ContainsTable for this?
I have only seen examples of looking at one table and search all the columns. I have not seen a case where I may have say a form. Lets call it "student application form".
On this form it may have information like
Student First Name
Student Last Name
Address
Campus they wish to study at
Tell us about yourself
Now I want to build 1 search box that will search all these tables and find this "application"
the user might type in
John Smith
Main Campus
motivated
So all tables and columns would need to be checked, but end result would be brining back the application(s) that the full text search thinks matches what was typed in.
The table structure might be like this
Application
id
firstName
lastName
campusId
AddressId
Campus
id
name
Address
id
-Name
In my real database I got like 5 or 6 tables that join with the "application" table and would all need to be accounted for.
Can this be done with full text search? Or do I have to search each table individually and somehow tie it all together again.
You can use an indexed view that concatenante all values that you want to search for...
CREATE VIEW dbo.V_FT
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
SELECT A.id,
CONCAT(firstName, '#', lastName, '#', C.name, '#',D.name) AS DATA
FROM dbo.Application
JOIN dbo.Campus AS C ON C.id = A.campusId
JOIN dbo.Address AS D ON C.id = A.AddressId;
GO
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX X_V_APP ON dbo.V_FT (id);
GO
Then create an FT index on DATA colums of the indexed view
I have two SQL tables, with deviations of the spellings of department names. I'm needing to combine those using case to create one spelling of the location name. Budget_Rc is the only one with same spelling in both tables. Here's an example:
Table-1 table-2
Depart_Name Room_Loc Depart_Name Room_Loc
1. Finance_P1 P144 1. Fin_P1 P1444
2. Budget_Rc R2c 2. Budget_Rc R2c
3. Payroll_P1_2 P1144 3. Finan_P1_1 P1444
4. PR_P1_2 P1140
What I'm needing to achieve is for the department to be 1 entity, with one room location. These should show as one with one room location in the main table (Table-1).
Depart_Name Room_Loc
1. Finance_P1 F144
2. Budget_Rc R2c
3. Payroll_P1_2 P1144
Many many thanks in advance!
I'd first try a
DECLARE #AllSpellings TABLE(DepName VARCHAR(100));
INSERT INTO #AllSpellings(DepName)
SELECT Depart_Name FROM tbl1 GROUP BY Depart_Name
UNION
SELECT Depart_Name FROM tbl2 GROUP BY Depart_Name;
SELECT DepName
FROM #AllSpellings
ORDER BY DepName
This will help you to find all existing values...
Now you create a clean table with all Departments with an IDENTITY ID-column.
Now you have two choices:
In case you cannot change the table's layout
Use the upper select-statement to find all existing entries and create a mapping table, which you can use as indirect link
Better: real FK-relation
Replace the department's names with the ID and let this be a FOREIGN KEY REFERENCE
Can more than one department be in a Room?
If so then its harder and you can't really write a dynamic query without having a list of all the possible one to many relationships such as Finance has the department key of FIN and they have these three names. You will have to define that table to make any sort of relationship.
For instance:
DEPARTMENT TABLE
ID NAME ROOMID
FIN FINANCE P1444
PAY PAYROLL P1140
DEPARTMENTNAMES
ID DEPARTMENTNAME DEPARTMENTID
1 Finance_P1 FIN
2 Payroll_P1_2 PAY
3 Fin_P1 FIN
etc...
This way you can correctly match up all the departments and their names. I would use this match table to get the data organized and normalized before then cleaning up all your data and then just using a singular department name. Its going to be manual but should be one time if you then clean up the data.
If the room is only ever going to belong to one department you can join on the room which makes it a lot easier.
Since there does not appear any solid rule for mapping department names from table one to table two, the way I would approach this is to create a mapping table. This mapping table will relate the two department names.
mapping
Depart_Name_1 | Depart_Name_2
-----------------------------
Finance_P1 | Fin_P1
Budget_Rc | Budget_Rc
Payroll_P1_2 | PR_P1_2
Then, you can do a three-way join to bring everything into a single result set:
SELECT t1.*, t2.*
FROM table1 t1
INNER JOIN mapping m
ON t1.Depart_Name = m.Depart_Name_1
INNER JOIN table2 t2
ON m.Depart_Name_2 = t2.Depart_Name
It may seem tedious to create the mapping table, but it may be unavoidable here. If you can think of a way to automate it, then this could cut down on the time spent there.
Due to non-disclosure at my work, I have created an analogy of the situation. Please try to focus on the problem and not "Why don't you rename this table, m,erge those tables etc". Because the actual problem is much more complex.
Heres the deal,
Lets say I have a "Employee Pay Rise" record that has to be approved.
There is a table with single "Users".
There are tables that group Users together, forexample, "Managers", "Executives", "Payroll", "Finance". These groupings are different types with different properties.
When creating a "PayRise" record, the user who is creating the record also selects both a number of these groups (managers, executives etc) and/or single users who can 'approve' the pay rise.
What is the best way to relate a single "EmployeePayRise" record to 0 or more user records, and 0 or more of each of the groupings.
I would assume that the users are linked to the groups? If so in this case I would just link the employeePayRise record to one user that it applies to and the user that can approve. So basically you'd have two columns representing this. The EmployeePayRise.employeeId and EmployeePayRise.approvalById columns. If you need to get to groups, you'd join the EmployeePayRise.employeeId = Employee.id records. Keep it simple without over-complicating your design.
My first thought was to create a table that relates individual approvers to pay rise rows.
create table pay_rise_approvers (
pay_rise_id integer not null references some_other_pay_rise_table (pay_rise_id),
pay_rise_approver_id integer not null references users (user_id),
primary key (pay_rise_id, pay_rise_approver_id)
);
You can't have good foreign keys that reference managers sometimes, and reference payroll some other times. Users seems the logical target for the foreign key.
If the person creating the pay rise rows (not shown) chooses managers, then the user interface is responsible for inserting one row per manager into this table. That part's easy.
A person that appears in more than one group might be a problem. I can imagine a vice-president appearing in both "Executive" and "Finance" groups. I don't think that's particularly hard to handle, but it does require some forethought. Suppose the person who entered the data changed her mind, and decided to remove all the executives from the table. Should an executive who's also in finance be removed?
Another problem is that there's a pretty good chance that not every user should be allowed to approve a pay rise. I'd give some thought to that before implementing any solution.
I know it looks ugly but I think somethimes the solution can be to have the table_name in the table and a union query
create table approve_pay_rise (
rise_proposal varchar2(10) -- foreign key to payrise table
, approver varchar2(10) -- key of record in table named in other_table
, other_table varchar2(15) );
insert into approve_pay_rise values ('prop000001', 'e0009999', 'USERS');
insert into approve_pay_rise values ('prop000001', 'm0002200', 'MANAGERS');
Then either in code a case statement, repeated statements for each other_table value (select ... where other_table = '' .. select ... where other_table = '') or a union select.
I have to admit I shudder when I encounter it and I'll now go wash my hands after typing a recomendation to do it, but it works.
Sounds like you'd might need two tables ("ApprovalUsers" and "ApprovalGroups"). The SELECT statement(s) would be a UNION of UserIds from the "ApprovalUsers" and the UserIDs from any other groups of users that are the "ApprovalGroups" related to the PayRiseId.
SELECT UserID
INTO #TempApprovers
FROM ApprovalUsers
WHERE PayRiseId = 12345
IF EXISTS (SELECT GroupName FROM ApprovalGroups WHERE GroupName = "Executives" and PayRiseId = 12345)
BEGIN
SELECT UserID
INTO #TempApprovers
FROM Executives
END
....
EDIT: this would/could duplicate UserIds, so you would probably want to GROUP BY UserID (i.e. SELECT UserID FROM #TempApprovers GROUP BY UserID)
Ok I have a question and it is probably very easy but I can not find the solution.
I have 3 tables plus one main tbl.
tbl_1 - tbl_1Name_id
tbl_2- tbl_2Name_id
tbl_3 - tbl_3Name_id
I want to connect the Name_id fields to the main tbl fields below.
main_tbl
___________
tbl_1Name_id
tbl_2Name_id
tbl_3Name_id
Main tbl has a Unique Key for these fields and in the other table, fields they are normal fields NOT NULL.
What I would like to do is that any time when the record is entered in tbl_1, tbl_2 or tbl_3, the value from the main table shows in that field, or other way.
Also I have the relationship Many to one, one being the main tbl of course.
I have a feeling this should be very simple but can not get it to work.
Take a look at SQL Server triggers. This will allow you to perform an action when a record is inserted into any one of those tables.
If you provide some more information like:
An example of an insert
The resulting change you would like
to see as a result of that insert
I can try and give you some more details.
UPDATE
Based on your new comments I suspect that you are working with a denormalized database schema. Below is how I would suggest you structure your tables in the Employee-Medical visit scenario you discussed:
Employee
--------
EmployeeId
fName
lName
EmployeeMedicalVisit
--------------------
VisitId
EmployeeId
Date
Cost
Some important things:
Note that I am not entering the
employees name into the
EmployeeMedicalVisit table, just the EmployeeId. This
helps to maintain data integrity and
complies with First Normal Form
You should read up on 1st, 2nd and
3rd normal forms. Database
normalization is a very imporant
subject and it will make your life
easier if you can grasp them.
With the above structure, when an employee visited a medical office you would insert a record into EmployeeMedicalVisit. To select all medical visits for an employee you would use the query below:
SELECT e.fName, e.lName
FROM Employee e
INNER JOIN EmployeeMedicalVisit as emv
ON e.EployeeId = emv.EmployeeId
Hope this helps!
Here is a sample trigger that may show you waht you need to have:
Create trigger mytabletrigger ON mytable
For INSERT
AS
INSERT MYOTHERTABLE (MytableId, insertdate)
select mytableid, getdate() from inserted
In a trigger you have two psuedotables available, inserted and deleted. The inserted table constains the data that is being inserted into the table you have the trigger on including any autogenerated id. That is how you get the data to the other table assuming you don't need other data at the same time. YOu can get other data from system stored procuders or joins to other tables but not from a form in the application.
If you do need other data that isn't available in a trigger (such as other values from a form, then you need to write a sttored procedure to insert to one table and return the id value through an output clause or using scope_identity() and then use that data to build the insert for the next table.
Web app is being written in classic ASP with a MSSQL backend. On this particular page, the admin can select 1 or any/all of the employees to assign the project to. I'm trying to figure out a simple way to store the employee IDs of the people assigned to it in one column.
The list of employees is generated from another table and can be dynamic (firing or hiring) so I want the program to be flexible enough to change based on these table changes.
Basically need to know how to assign multiple people to a project that can later be called up on a differen page or from a different query.
Sorry for the n00bish question, but thanks!
Don't store multiple ID's in one column! Create another table with the primary key of your existing table and a single ID that you want to store. You can then insert multiple rows into this new table, creating a 1:m (one to many) relationship. For example, let's look at an order table:
order:
order_id
order_date
and I have a product table...
product:
product_id
product_name
Now, you could go down the road of adding a column to order that let you list the products in the order, but that would be bad form. What you want instead is something like..
order_item:
order_item_id
order_id
product_id
quantity
unit_price
You can then perform a join to get all of the products for a particular order...
select
product.*
from orders
inner join order_item on order_item.order_id = order.order_id
inner join product on product.product_id = order_item.product_id
where orders.order_id = 5
Here's an example order_id of 5, and this will get all of the products in that order.
You need to create another table that stores these values such as. So this new table would store one row for each ID, and then link back to the original record with the original records ID.