delete duplicates

  • Hi, Gregory and everybody,

    I visited your SQL Server Examples Web site. It is helpful for me. Thank you for your efforts.

    I have a question here. You have a script to identify duplicate records in a table. Do you have a way to delete these duplicates but still keep one record for all duplicates? For example, you have duplicates:

    3, item3

    3, item3

    3, item3

    How to delete two of them and keep one record. Of cause, you can delete all three and then insert one. But this is not what I am expecting.

    Thank you for your time,

    Yin

  • Here is an example that will do that:

    -- this example shows a method to get rid of duplicates in a table

    create table temp_table (a char(1))

    insert into temp_table values('a')

    insert into temp_table values('a')

    insert into temp_table values('b')

    insert into temp_table values('b')

    -- show duplicates

    select * from temp_table

    go

    SELECT DISTINCT *

    INTO #TEMPTABLE from temp_table

    GO

    DELETE from temp_table

    GO

    INSERT INTO temp_table

    SELECT * FROM #TEMPTABLE

    -- show no dups

    select * from temp_table

    drop table #temptable

    drop table temp_table

    -------------------------

    Gregory Larsen, DBA

    If you looking for SQL Server Examples check out my website at http://www.geocities.com/sqlserverexamples

    Gregory A. Larsen, MVP

  • Thanks. It should work for me.

    Yin

  • Here's how to delete all duplicates and leaving one in the table without reinserting the record.

    *********************************************

    Table Used in this example

    *****************************************

    CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Table2] (

    [TID] [int] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT NULL ,

    [FName] [varchar] (50) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL

    ) ON [PRIMARY]

    GO

    ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Table2] WITH NOCHECK ADD

    CONSTRAINT [PK_Table2] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

    (

    [TID]

    ) ON [PRIMARY]

    GO

    *********************************************

    Code to delete the records

    *********************************************

    CREATE PROCEDURE Delete_FName

    AS

    CREATE TABLE #TempName (PK INT IDENTITY NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, FName VARCHAR(50), FNCount INT)

    INSERT INTO #TempName

    (FName,

    FNCount)

    SELECT

    FName,COUNT(FName) AS FNCount FROM table2 GROUP BY FName HAVING COUNT(FName) >1

    DECLARE @CheckCount INT

    DECLARE @RecordCount INT

    DECLARE @DeleteName INT

    DECLARE @I INT

    DECLARE @FName VARCHAR(50)

    SET @RecordCount = (SELECT COUNT(FName) FROM #TempName)

    SET @I = 1

    WHILE @I <= @RecordCount

    BEGIN

    SET @FName = (SELECT FName FROM #TempName WHERE PK = @I)

    SET @DeleteName = (SELECT TOP 1 TID FROM Table2 WHERE FName = @Fname)

    SET @CheckCount = (SELECT COUNT(FName) FROM Table2 GROUP BY FName HAVING FName = @FNAME )

    PRINT @RECORDCount

    IF @CheckCount > 1

    BEGIN

    DELETE

    Table2

    WHERE TID = @DeleteName

    SET @CheckCount = (SELECT COUNT(FName) FROM Table2 GROUP BY FName HAVING FName = @FNAME )

    Continue

    END

    ELSE

    BEGIN

    EXEC Delete_FName

    BREAK

    END

    IF @CheckCount > 1 or @I = @RecordCount

    BEGIN

    SET @I = @I +1

    Continue

    END

    ELSE

    BEGIN

    SET @I = @I

    Continue

    END

    Continue

    END

    GO

    Edward M. Sokolove


    Edward M. Sokolove

  • If you have many fields and only some of them are dupes you need another way to do this. Drop me a message and I'll show another method using a cursor where you choose the fields to use for "Duplicate" classification.

    Isaiah


    -Isaiah

  • All you would have to do is modify this stored procedure a bit to add columns (pass in a variable, etc. without using a cursor. I was just giving an example of how to delete 1 column because that is what they were talking about.

    Edward M. Sokolove


    Edward M. Sokolove

  • see today's article also!!

    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/darjun/deletingduplicaterows.asp

    Linto

  • Hi Guys,

    If i having a duplication problem on table index. anyway to list the duplicated index and delete the duplicate once?

    Thanks in advance.

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