Question

Following is the sample data. I need to make 3 copies of this data in t sql without using loop and return as one resultset. This is sample data not real.

42  South Yorkshire
43  Lancashire
44  Norfolk

Edit: I need multiple copies and I have no idea in advance that how many copies I need I have to decide this on the basis of dates. Date might be 1st jan to 3rd Jan OR 1st jan to 8th Jan.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Don’t know about better but this is definatley more creative! you can use a CROSS JOIN.
EDIT: put some code in to generate a date range, you can change the date range, the rows in the #date are your multiplier.

  declare @startdate datetime
, @enddate datetime
create table #data1 ([id] int , [name] nvarchar(100))
create table #dates ([date] datetime)


INSERT #data1 SELECT 42,  'South Yorkshire'
INSERT #data1 SELECT 43,  'Lancashire'
INSERT #data1 SELECT 44,  'Norfolk'


set @startdate = '1Jan2010'
set @enddate = '3Jan2010'

WHILE (@startdate <= @enddate)
BEGIN   
INSERT #dates SELECT @startdate
set @startdate=@startdate+1
END


SELECT [id] , [name] from #data1 cross join #dates

drop table #data1
drop table #dates