Passing delimited string to stored procedure to search database

Question

How can i pass a string delimited by space or comma to stored procedure and filter result? I'm trying to do something like -

Parameter      Value
--------------------------
@keywords      key1 key2 key3

Then is stored procedure i want to first

1. find all records with first or last name like key1
2. filter step 1 with first or last name like key2
3. filter step 2 with first or last name like key 3

Another example:

col1    |       col2        | col3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
hello xyz   |   abc is my last name | and i'm a developer
hello xyz   |       null        | and i'm a developer

If i search for any following it should return for each?

1. "xyz developer" returns 2 rows

2. "xyz abc" returns 1 row

3. "abc developer"returns 1 row

4. "hello" returns 2 rows

5. "hello developer" returns 2 rows

6. "xyz" returns 2 rows

Answer 1

Since you can't use a table parameter (not on SQL Server 2008), try passing in a CSV sting and have the stored procedure split it into rows for you.

There are many ways to split string in SQL Server. This article covers the PROs and CONs of just about every method:

"Arrays and Lists in SQL Server 2005 and Beyond, When Table Value Parameters Do Not Cut it" by Erland Sommarskog

You need to create a split function. This is how a split function can be used:

SELECT
    *
    FROM YourTable                               y
    INNER JOIN dbo.yourSplitFunction(@Parameter) s ON y.ID=s.Value

I prefer the number table approach to split a string in TSQL but there are numerous ways to split strings in SQL Server, see the previous link, which explains the PROs and CONs of each.

For the Numbers Table method to work, you need to do this one time table setup, which will create a table Numbers that contains rows from 1 to 10,000:

SELECT TOP 10000 IDENTITY(int,1,1) AS Number
    INTO Numbers
    FROM sys.objects s1
    CROSS JOIN sys.objects s2
ALTER TABLE Numbers ADD CONSTRAINT PK_Numbers PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (Number)

Once the Numbers table is set up, create this split function:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[FN_ListToTable]
(
     @SplitOn  char(1)      --REQUIRED, the character to split the @List string on
    ,@List     varchar(8000)--REQUIRED, the list to split apart
)
RETURNS TABLE
AS
RETURN 
(   ----------------
    --SINGLE QUERY-- --this will not return empty rows
    ----------------
    SELECT
        ListValue
        FROM (SELECT
                  LTRIM(RTRIM(SUBSTRING(List2, number+1, CHARINDEX(@SplitOn, List2, number+1)-number - 1))) AS ListValue
                  FROM (
                           SELECT @SplitOn + @List + @SplitOn AS List2
                       ) AS dt
                      INNER JOIN Numbers n ON n.Number < LEN(dt.List2)
                  WHERE SUBSTRING(List2, number, 1) = @SplitOn
             ) dt2
        WHERE ListValue IS NOT NULL AND ListValue!=''
);
GO 

You can now easily split a space delimited string into a table and join on it or use it however you need This codes is based on the OPs latest question edit:

CREATE TABLE YourTable (PK int, col1 varchar(20), col2 varchar(20), col3 varchar(20))
--data from question
INSERT INTO YourTable VALUES (1,'hello xyz','abc is my last name','and i''m a developer')
INSERT INTO YourTable VALUES (2,'hello xyz',null,'and i''m a developer')

CREATE PROCEDURE YourProcedure
(
    @keywords   varchar(1000)
)
AS

SELECT
    @keywords AS KeyWords,y.* 
    FROM (SELECT
              t.PK
              FROM dbo.FN_ListToTable(' ',@keywords) dt
                  INNER JOIN YourTable             t ON  t.col1 LIKE '%'+dt.ListValue+'%' OR t.col2 LIKE '%'+dt.ListValue+'%' OR t.col3 LIKE '%'+dt.ListValue+'%'
              GROUP BY t.PK
              HAVING COUNT(t.PK)=(SELECT COUNT(*) AS CountOf FROM dbo.FN_ListToTable(' ',@keywords))
         ) dt
        INNER JOIN YourTable y ON dt.PK=y.PK
GO

--from question   
EXEC YourProcedure 'xyz developer'-- returns 2 rows
EXEC YourProcedure 'xyz abc'-- returns 1 row
EXEC YourProcedure 'abc developer'-- returns 1 row
EXEC YourProcedure 'hello'--  returns 2 rows
EXEC YourProcedure 'hello developer'--  returns 2 rows
EXEC YourProcedure 'xyz'-- returns 2 rows

OUTPUT:

KeyWords       PK    col1       col2                 col3
-------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
xyz developer  1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer
xyz developer  2     hello xyz  NULL                 and i'm a developer

(2 row(s) affected)

KeyWords       PK    col1       col2                 col3
-------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
xyz abc        1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer

(1 row(s) affected)

KeyWords       PK    col1       col2                 col3
-------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
abc developer  1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer

(1 row(s) affected)

KeyWords       PK    col1       col2                 col3
-------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
hello          1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer
hello          2     hello xyz  NULL                 and i'm a developer

(2 row(s) affected)

KeyWords        PK    col1       col2                 col3
--------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
hello developer 1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer
hello developer 2     hello xyz  NULL                 and i'm a developer

(2 row(s) affected)

KeyWords       PK    col1       col2                 col3
-------------- ----- ---------- -------------------- --------------------
xyz            1     hello xyz  abc is my last name  and i'm a developer
xyz            2     hello xyz  NULL                 and i'm a developer

(2 row(s) affected)

Answer 2

You could try something like:

select firstname, lastname from @test t1
inner join persondata t on t.firstname like '%' + t1.x + '%' or t.lastname like '%' + t1.x + '%'
group by firstname, lastname
having count(distinct x) = (select count(*) from @test)

where @test is the table with results of your split. If you have lots of columns in persondata, you might want to just return an ID from this query, and use it as a subquery for the one that actually returns data, so you don't have to group by so many columns.

Edit: you could also use a cursor and another temp table/table variable, but I have kind of an allergic reaction to cursors in SPs.