Question

assume my table contains following columns

 Roll_number numeric           not null
 Subject1    varchar(40)       null
 Subject2    varchar(40)       null
 . . .
 Subject8    varchar(40)       null

i have to search a subject in all these subject1 to 8 using SQL Query. what would be the best query to search a substring in all these columns keeping in mind that any one of these can have NULL value.

i wrote

select * 
from students_data 
where subject1="BIOLOGY" or subject2="BIOLOGY" . . . . or subject8="BIOLOGY" 

but i need a simple query because in actual i have more than 20 columns in my table

The query

select * from table1 where "BIOLOGY" in (subject1,subject2,subject3)

was helpful but what if i have to match just the substring (part of that subject) like
“BIO” in that table fields

Answer 1

How about this?

SELECT * 
FROM students_data
WHERE subject1 + ' ' + subject2 + ' ' + ..... + subject8 LIKE '%BIOLOGY%';

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Update 1

For NULL values, use below.

SELECT * 
FROM students_data
WHERE ISNULL(subject1,'') + ' ' + ISNULL(subject2,'')
+ ' ' + ..... + ISNULL(subject8,'') LIKE '%BIOLOGY%';

For using BIO, you can use LIKE '%BIO%';