Question

Current

Name   Quantity
---------------
Stella       2
Jennifer     2
Greg         3 

Requested result

Name    Quantity 
---------------
Stella       1
Stella       1
Jennifer     1
Jennifer     1
Greg         1
Greg         1 
Greg         1 

How should I do it?

declare @T table  
(  
  Name varchar(50),  
  Sales int  
)  
insert into @T values  
('Stella',   '2'),  
('Jennifer', '2'), 
('Greg',     '3')

Answer 1

Using recursion and borrowing Michael Fredrickson’s setup code:

declare @T table (  
  Name varchar(50),  
  Sales int  
)

insert into @T values ('Stella',   '2')  
insert into @T values ('Jennifer', '2') 
insert into @T values ('Greg',     '3')

-- Recursive verion
;with People (Name, Sales) as
(
    select Name, Sales
    from @T
    union all
    select Name, Sales - 1
    from People
    where Sales - 1 > 0
)
select Name, 1 as Quantity
from People
option (maxrecursion 0) -- Recurse without limit

This seems to run faster on my box (5x faster than Michael Fredrickson’s according to query plan, but with many more logical reads), not that it matters much.