How do I UPDATE from a SELECT in SQL Server?
How do I UPDATE from a SELECT in SQL Server?
Question
In SQL Server, it is possible to insert rows into a table with an INSERT.. SELECT
statement:
INSERT INTO Table (col1, col2, col3)
SELECT col1, col2, col3
FROM other_table
WHERE sql = 'cool'
Is it also possible to update a table with SELECT
? I have a temporary table containing the values and would like to update another table using those values. Perhaps something like this:
UPDATE Table SET col1, col2
SELECT col1, col2
FROM other_table
WHERE sql = 'cool'
WHERE Table.id = other_table.id
Accepted Answer
UPDATE
Table_A
SET
Table_A.col1 = Table_B.col1,
Table_A.col2 = Table_B.col2
FROM
Some_Table AS Table_A
INNER JOIN Other_Table AS Table_B
ON Table_A.id = Table_B.id
WHERE
Table_A.col3 = 'cool'
Read more… Read less…
In SQL Server 2008 (or better), use MERGE
MERGE INTO YourTable T
USING other_table S
ON T.id = S.id
AND S.tsql = 'cool'
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE
SET col1 = S.col1,
col2 = S.col2;
Alternatively:
MERGE INTO YourTable T
USING (
SELECT id, col1, col2
FROM other_table
WHERE tsql = 'cool'
) S
ON T.id = S.id
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE
SET col1 = S.col1,
col2 = S.col2;
UPDATE YourTable
SET Col1 = OtherTable.Col1,
Col2 = OtherTable.Col2
FROM (
SELECT ID, Col1, Col2
FROM other_table) AS OtherTable
WHERE
OtherTable.ID = YourTable.ID
I'd modify Robin's excellent answer to the following:
UPDATE Table
SET Table.col1 = other_table.col1,
Table.col2 = other_table.col2
FROM
Table
INNER JOIN other_table ON Table.id = other_table.id
WHERE
Table.col1 != other_table.col1
OR Table.col2 != other_table.col2
OR (
other_table.col1 IS NOT NULL
AND Table.col1 IS NULL
)
OR (
other_table.col2 IS NOT NULL
AND Table.col2 IS NULL
)
Without a WHERE clause, you'll affect even rows that don't need to be affected, which could (possibly) cause index recalculation or fire triggers that really shouldn't have been fired.
One way
UPDATE t
SET t.col1 = o.col1,
t.col2 = o.col2
FROM
other_table o
JOIN
t ON t.id = o.id
WHERE
o.sql = 'cool'
Another possibility not mentioned yet is to just chuck the SELECT
statement itself into a CTE and then update the CTE.
;WITH CTE
AS (SELECT T1.Col1,
T2.Col1 AS _Col1,
T1.Col2,
T2.Col2 AS _Col2
FROM T1
JOIN T2
ON T1.id = T2.id
/*Where clause added to exclude rows that are the same in both tables
Handles NULL values correctly*/
WHERE EXISTS(SELECT T1.Col1,
T1.Col2
EXCEPT
SELECT T2.Col1,
T2.Col2))
UPDATE CTE
SET Col1 = _Col1,
Col2 = _Col2
This has the benefit that it is easy to run the SELECT
statement on its own first to sanity check the results, but it does requires you to alias the columns as above if they are named the same in source and target tables.
This also has the same limitation as the proprietary UPDATE ... FROM
syntax shown in four of the other answers. If the source table is on the many side of a one-to-many join then it is undeterministic which of the possible matching joined records will be used in the Update
(an issue that MERGE
avoids by raising an error if there is an attempt to update the same row more than once).