how to pass a comma separated list to a stored procedure?

Question

So I have a Sybase stored proc that takes 1 parameter that's a comma separated list of strings and runs a query with in in an IN() clause:

CREATE PROCEDURE getSomething @keyList varchar(4096)
AS
SELECT * FROM mytbl WHERE name IN (@keyList)

How do I call my stored proc with more than 1 value in the list? So far I've tried

exec getSomething 'John'         -- works but only 1 value
exec getSomething 'John','Tom'   -- doesn't work - expects two variables
exec getSomething "'John','Tom'" -- doesn't work - doesn't find anything
exec getSomething '"John","Tom"' -- doesn't work - doesn't find anything
exec getSomething '\'John\',\'Tom\'' -- doesn't work - syntax error

EDIT: I actually found this page that has a great reference of the various ways to pas an array to a sproc

Answer 1

Do you need to use a comma separated list? The last couple of years, I've been taking this type of idea and passing in an XML file. The openxml "function" takes a string and makes it like xml and then if you create a temp table with the data, it is queryable.

DECLARE @idoc int
DECLARE @doc varchar(1000)
SET @doc ='
<ROOT>
<Customer CustomerID="VINET" ContactName="Paul Henriot">
   <Order CustomerID="VINET" EmployeeID="5" OrderDate="1996-07-04T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10248" ProductID="11" Quantity="12"/>
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10248" ProductID="42" Quantity="10"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
<Customer CustomerID="LILAS" ContactName="Carlos Gonzlez">
   <Order CustomerID="LILAS" EmployeeID="3" OrderDate="1996-08-16T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10283" ProductID="72" Quantity="3"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
</ROOT>'
--Create an internal representation of the XML document.
EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @idoc OUTPUT, @doc
-- Execute a SELECT statement that uses the OPENXML rowset provider.
SELECT    *
FROM       OPENXML (@idoc, '/ROOT/Customer',1)
            WITH (CustomerID  varchar(10),
                  ContactName varchar(20))

Answer 2

Pass the comma separated list into a function that returns a table value. There is a MS SQL example somewhere on StackOverflow, damned if I can see it at the moment.

CREATE PROCEDURE getSomething @keyList varchar(4096)
AS
SELECT * FROM mytbl WHERE name IN (fn_GetKeyList(@keyList))

Call with -

exec getSomething 'John,Tom,Foo,Bar'

I'm guessing Sybase should be able to do something similar?

Answer 3

You also might use an CONTAINS method (I don't know the name of it in Sybase:

CREATE PROCEDURE getSomething @keyList varchar(4096)
AS
SELECT * FROM mytbl WHERE charindex(name,@keyList)<>0

Answer 4

Assuming your goal is to be able to use bind variables for queries like:

Select * from Table where column in (:bindVariableToPreventSQLInjection)

A complete example for Oracle is at Tom Kyte's site - he is * the Oracle Guru*.

Answer 5

Regarding Kevin's idea of passing the parameter to a function that splits the text into a table, here's my implementation of that function from a few years back. Works a treat.

Splitting Text into Words in SQL

Answer 6

If you're using Sybase 12.5 or earlier then you can't use functions. A workouround might be to populate a temporary table with the values and read them from there.

Answer 7

This is a quick and dirty method that may be useful:

select  * 
from    mytbl 
where   "," + ltrim(rtrim(@keylist)) + "," like "%," + ltrim(rtrim(name)) + ",%"

Answer 8

Not sure if it's in ASE, but in SQL Anywhere, the sa_split_list function returns a table from a CSV. It has optional arguments to pass a different delimiter (default is a comma) and a maxlength for each returned value.

sa_split_list function

Answer 9

The problem with the calls like this: exec getSomething '"John","Tom"' is that it's treating '"John","Tom"' as a single string, it will only match an entry in the table that is '"John","Tom"'.

If you didn't want to use a temp table as in Paul's answer, then you could use dynamic sql. (Assumes v12+)

CREATE PROCEDURE getSomething @keyList varchar(4096)
AS
declare @sql varchar(4096)
select @sql = "SELECT * FROM mytbl WHERE name IN (" + @keyList +")"
exec(@sql)

You will need to ensure the items in @keylist have quotes around them, even if they are single values.

Answer 10

This works in SQL. Declare in your GetSomething procedure a variable of type XML as such:

DECLARE @NameArray XML = NULL

The body of the stored procedure implements the following:

SELECT * FROM MyTbl WHERE name IN (SELECT ParamValues.ID.value('.','VARCHAR(10)') FROM @NameArray.nodes('id') AS ParamValues(ID))

From within the SQL code that calls the SP declare and initialize the XML variable before calling the stored procedure:

DECLARE @NameArray XML

SET @NameArray = '<id>Name_1</id><id>Name_2</id><id>Name_3</id><id>Name_4</id>'

Using your example the call to the stored procedure would be:

EXEC GetSomething @NameArray

I have used this method before and it works fine. If you want a quick test, copy and paste the following code to a new query and execute:

DECLARE @IdArray XML

SET @IdArray = '<id>Name_1</id><id>Name_2</id><id>Name_3</id><id>Name_4</id>'

SELECT ParamValues.ID.value('.','VARCHAR(10)') FROM @IdArray.nodes('id') AS ParamValues(ID)