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karthik M One Orange Chip Points: 29139 More actions · Answer 1

rbarryyoung,

any updates about your article ? is it published ?

karthik

RBarryYoung SSC Guru Points: 143329 More actions · Answer 2

Yes, it will be published on Tuesday, August 5th, I believe. Unlike Jeff, my time machine is broken so I do not have a pre-publication link for you. 😀

[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung [font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

Todd Sherman-487999 SSC Veteran Points: 221 More actions · Answer 3

ack, never mind, nothing to see here, look, is that elvis?

Christian Buettner-167247 SSChampion Points: 13729 More actions · Answer 4

Thanks RBarryYoung for this 123 post long excursion into "Effects of unclear requirements in Software Engineering"

Your fantastic article that went live by now made me too curious and I have really read through each and every individual posts (although some I have not read in detail...)

Unfortunately I sometimes make the same mistake of not reading the requirements well enough. I just blame it me being a human though.

This reminded me of the good ol' SE cartoon:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000230.html

Best Regards,

Chris Büttner

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004403 More actions · Answer 5

Heh... OUTSTANDING CHRIS! I've been looking for that exact cartoon for a while now! Thanks. And, yeah... it does remind me a lot about the Shenanigans that went on in this post.

Hey folks, if you haven't read Barry's article, he did a great job on it. Added some very interesting historical information about this, what used to be, common practice to save disk space. See the following URL...

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63578/

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Christian Buettner-167247 SSChampion Points: 13729 More actions · Answer 6

Christian Buettner-167247

SSChampion

Points: 13729

August 6, 2008 at 6:35 am

#853755

Glad i could help 🙂

Best Regards,

Chris Büttner

Greg Snidow SSCoach Points: 16108 More actions · Answer 7

Barry, I am truly humbled. When I read your article I felt like the tyke I was back in your "back in the day", with the binky in my mouth in the early 70's. Its like kids in school learning math with calculators now. Some of them can do math that would have made Einstein proud, but take the calculator away, and they can not work out a simple calculus problem by hand. I am very glad there are so many seasoned professionals like yourself willing to impart your knowledge.

Greg
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
The glass is at one half capacity: nothing more, nothing less.

SwePeso SSC-Dedicated Points: 39757 More actions · Answer 8

OP wrote there was no primary key.

Is there a clustered index present?

CREATE TABLE#Sample

(

Col1 VARCHAR(5),

Col2 INT,

Col3 CHAR(1)

)

INSERT#Sample

SELECT'ABC', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'DEF', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'DEF', 24, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'GHI', 26, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'LMN', 27, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'PQRS', 25, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'XYZ', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'XYZ', 25, 'M'

CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX IX_Sample ON #Sample (Col1, Col2, Col3)

DECLARE@Col1 VARCHAR(5),

@Col2 INT,

@Col3 CHAR(1)

UPDATE#Sample

SET@Col3 = Col3 =CASE

WHEN Col1 = @Col1 AND Col2 = @Col2 AND Col3 = @Col3 THEN Col3

ELSE 'x'

END,

@Col1 = Col1,

@Col2 = Col2,

@Col3 = Col3

SELECT*

FROM#Sample

DELETE

FROM#Sample

WHERECol3 = 'x'

SELECT*

FROM#Sample

DROP TABLE#Sample

N 56°04'39.16"
E 12°55'05.25"

RBarryYoung SSC Guru Points: 143329 More actions · Answer 9

Thanks Greg. Glad you liked the article.

[font="Times New Roman"]-- RBarryYoung[/font], [font="Times New Roman"] (302)375-0451[/font] blog: MovingSQL.com, Twitter: @RBarryYoung [font="Arial Black"]
Proactive Performance Solutions, Inc. [/font][font="Verdana"] "Performance is our middle name."[/font]

Sergiy SSC Guru Points: 110208 More actions · Answer 10

Well, I see you guys had a lot of fun here.

OK, I read this thread as well.

And I cannon figure out one thing.

Everyone agreed the puzzle was designed to prove some problems cannot be solved without loops.

OK.

I can see some set-based methods solving the problem, including the one nobody mentioned (or I missed it): count distinct rows and then with a little help from Tally wizard restore CUNT(*)-1 rows.

But here is a funny question: how to solve it USING a cursor?

Yes, it's easy to find 1st non-duplicated row which you need to delete.

But how to do delete itself?

_____________
Code for TallyGenerator

SwePeso SSC-Dedicated Points: 39757 More actions · Answer 11

DELETE WHERE CURRENT OF?

N 56°04'39.16"
E 12°55'05.25"

Jeremy Giaco Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 537 More actions · Answer 12

Sergiy (8/6/2008)
Well, I see you guys had a lot of fun here.
OK, I read this thread as well.
And I cannon figure out one thing.
Everyone agreed the puzzle was designed to prove some problems cannot be solved without loops.
OK.
I can see some set-based methods solving the problem, including the one nobody mentioned (or I missed it): count distinct rows and then with a little help from Tally wizard restore CUNT(*)-1 rows.
But here is a funny question: how to solve it USING a cursor?
Yes, it's easy to find 1st non-duplicated row which you need to delete.
But how to do delete itself?

That is a great question....2005 supports the "delete top", but how to do in 2000 WITH cursor. I have to give major kudos to Chris Morris first though, that is awesome. I was on those lines, but was afraid of an "update @variable = @variable + column1" type logic due to the "no loops" restriction, but you totally nailed it! Nice Job...

This is ONLY in response to the question of how to solve WITH a cursor, and it would only work in 2005...so any help would be appreciated:

Create Table #test(

[Name] varchar(5),

Age tinyint,

Sex char(1)

)

Go

Insert Into #Test ([Name], Age, Sex)

Select 'ABC', 24,'M' Union All

Select 'DEF', 24,'M' Union All

Select 'DEF', 24,'F' Union All

Select 'GHI', 26,'F' Union All

Select 'LMN', 27,'M' Union All

Select 'PQRS', 25,'F' Union All

Select 'XYZ', 24,'M' Union All

Select 'XYZ', 25,'M'

--

Declare @name varchar(50), @age int, @sex char(1)

Declare cur_delete cursor for (

Select distinct [name], age, sex from #test

)

Open cur_delete

Fetch Next From cur_delete into @name, @age, @sex

While @@Fetch_status = 0

Begin

Delete top(1) from #test where [name] = @name and age = @age and sex = @sex

Fetch Next From cur_delete into @name, @age, @sex

End

Close cur_delete

Deallocate cur_delete

Select * from #test

Drop table #test

...My next question would be, what is the most efficient way to solve this problem, barring nothing ;)...

SwePeso SSC-Dedicated Points: 39757 More actions · Answer 13

You can use SET ROWCOUNT instead of using TOP.

DECLARE@Sample TABLE

(

Name VARCHAR(5),

Age TINYINT,

Sex CHAR(1)

)

INSERT@Sample

SELECT'ABC', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'DEF', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'DEF', 24, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'GHI', 26, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'LMN', 27, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'PQRS', 25, 'F' UNION ALL

SELECT'XYZ', 24, 'M' UNION ALL

SELECT'XYZ', 25, 'M'

DECLARE@Name VARCHAR(5),

@Age TINYINT,

@Sex CHAR(1)

DECLAREcurDelete CURSOR FOR

SELECT DISTINCT Name, Age, Sex FROM @Sample

OPENcurDelete

FETCH NEXT FROM curDelete INTO @Name, @Age, @Sex

SET ROWCOUNT 1

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

DELETE@Sample

WHEREName = @Name

AND Age = @Age

AND Sex = @Sex

FETCH NEXT FROM curDelete INTO @Name, @Age, @Sex

END

SET ROWCOUNT 0

CLOSE curDelete

DEALLOCATE curDelete

SELECT * FROM @Sample

N 56°04'39.16"
E 12°55'05.25"

ChrisM@Work SSC Guru Points: 186127 More actions · Answer 14

Gosh Jeremy :blush: thanks!

^{“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail Shaw}

For fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden

Jeremy Giaco Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 537 More actions · Answer 15

Nice, that works. I forgot about SET ROWCOUNT, havent had to use in a while. Anyways, now there is a post from me with a cursor in it....crap! 😉 What I like best about this entire article/discussion is that if cursors dont even have a place in this highly invented scenerio... enough said.