Question

For a search function, I want to return three types of results, so I query three times. It would probably be better to JOIN or UNION the queries into one, but how..

string sql1 = "SELECT DISTINCT area, CHARINDEX(@ss, area) FROM rgmaplocation WHERE area LIKE '%' + @ss + '%' ORDER BY CHARINDEX(@ss, area) ";
string sql2 = "SELECT DISTINCT compound, CHARINDEX(@ss, compound) FROM rgmaplocation WHERE compound LIKE '%' + @ss + '%' ORDER BY CHARINDEX(@ss, compound) ";
string sql3 = "SELECT DISTINCT streetname, CHARINDEX(@ss, streetname) FROM rgmaplocation WHERE streetname LIKE '%' + @ss + '%' ORDER BY CHARINDEX(@ss, streetname)";

Answer 1

Mikael Eriksson’s solution is good if you don’t mind having area, compounds and streetname mixed up. If you want to keep them separate, here you go

WITH C(No,Loc, Idx) AS
(
  SELECT DISTINCT 1,area, CHARINDEX('g', area) 
  FROM rgmaplocation 
  WHERE area LIKE '%g%' 
  UNION 
  SELECT DISTINCT 2,compound, CHARINDEX('g', compound) 
  FROM rgmaplocation 
  WHERE compound LIKE '%g%' 
  UNION 
  SELECT DISTINCT 3,streetname, CHARINDEX('g', streetname) 
  FROM rgmaplocation 
  WHERE streetname LIKE '%g%' 
)
SELECT No,Loc, Idx
FROM C
ORDER BY No,Idx