Prevent creating records if certain other records already exist

  • Evil Kraig F (12/11/2014)

    @scott: You missed a space in the first condition, near the end. Otherwise, that's a form of how I've done this in the past. However, we used NULL instead of ' '. Was more obvious and less prone to user errors.

    "Missed a space"? Not sure what you mean.

    I added code to consider NULL, but I commented it out because I wasn't sure if it was relevant to this q, but I didn't ignore it, because it would be a special condition.

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

  • RETURN (

    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optional_letter = ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter <> '')

    THEN -1

    WHEN @optional_letter > ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter = ' ')

    THEN -1

    --?WHEN @optional_letter IS NULL AND ...?

    ELSE 0

    END

    )

    END

    As far as I can tell, that should be <> ' ')


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  • ScottPletcher (12/11/2014)


    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optional_letter = ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter <> '')

    THEN -1

    WHEN @optional_letter > ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter = ' ')

    THEN -1

    --?WHEN @optional_letter IS NULL AND ...?

    ELSE 0

    END

    But this will allow duplicates.

  • This should do the trick. It validates the Optional letter so it can be either NULL or a letter, checks all the conditions from the first post and makes sure there is no duplicates.

    CREATE FUNCTION dbo.CKTest (@letter char(1), @number int, @optionalletter char(1))

    RETURNS BIT

    AS

    BEGIN

    RETURN(

    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optionalletter NOT LIKE '[a-Z]' OR

    (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND (optionalletter IS NULL OR optionalletter = ISNULL(@OptionalLetter,OptionalLetter))) > 1

    THEN -1

    ELSE 0

    END)

    END

  • Emil Bialobrzeski (12/12/2014)


    ScottPletcher (12/11/2014)


    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optional_letter = ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter <> '')

    THEN -1

    WHEN @optional_letter > ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter = ' ')

    THEN -1

    --?WHEN @optional_letter IS NULL AND ...?

    ELSE 0

    END

    But this will allow duplicates.

    There is already a unique index to prevent duplicates, according to the OP's description of the problem. The issue is to avoid allow blank and non-blank, not to deal with duplicates.

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

  • Evil Kraig F (12/11/2014)


    RETURN (

    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optional_letter = ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter <> '')

    THEN -1

    WHEN @optional_letter > ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter = ' ')

    THEN -1

    --?WHEN @optional_letter IS NULL AND ...?

    ELSE 0

    END

    )

    END

    As far as I can tell, that should be <> ' ')

    You mean '' vs. ' '? No difference. '' = ' ' = SPACE(2) = SPACE(5).

    Edit: '<multiple spaces>' was being auto-adjusted to a single space, so I changed to SPACE(n).

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

  • ScottPletcher (12/12/2014)


    Emil Bialobrzeski (12/12/2014)


    ScottPletcher (12/11/2014)


    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optional_letter = ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter <> '')

    THEN -1

    WHEN @optional_letter > ' ' AND EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND optional_letter = ' ')

    THEN -1

    --?WHEN @optional_letter IS NULL AND ...?

    ELSE 0

    END

    But this will allow duplicates.

    There is already a unique index to prevent duplicates, according to the OP's description of the problem. The issue is to avoid allow blank and non-blank, not to deal with duplicates.

    I don't see why not have one to deal with all of this? especially if the solution can be even simpler. If we are using already a function in check constraint lets use it fully and wisely.

    Emil Bialobrzeski (12/12/2014)


    This should do the trick. It validates the Optional letter so it can be either NULL or a letter, checks all the conditions from the first post and makes sure there is no duplicates.

    CREATE FUNCTION dbo.CKTest (@letter char(1), @number int, @optionalletter char(1))

    RETURNS BIT

    AS

    BEGIN

    RETURN(

    SELECT CASE

    WHEN @optionalletter NOT LIKE '[a-Z]' OR

    (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM dbo.Test WHERE letter = @letter AND number = @number AND (optionalletter IS NULL OR optionalletter = ISNULL(@OptionalLetter,OptionalLetter))) > 1

    THEN -1

    ELSE 0

    END)

    END

  • Thank you everyone for the input and suggestions. I've decided to go with a trigger, largely because everything is in one place. The check constraint option has the disadvantage of the function being in a separate place from the constraint specification. Also, the triggger just somehow seems more intuitive than calling a UDF.

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