Question

I am in the process of simplifying a complicated select statement, so thought I would use common table expressions.

Declaring a single cte works fine.

WITH cte1 AS (     SELECT * from cdr.Location     )  select * from cte1  

Is it possible to declare and use more than one cte in the same SELECT?

ie this sql gives an error

WITH cte1 as (     SELECT * from cdr.Location )  WITH cte2 as (     SELECT * from cdr.Location )  select * from cte1     union      select * from cte2 

the error is

Msg 156, Level 15, State 1, Line 7 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'WITH'. Msg 319, Level 15, State 1, Line 7 Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'with'. If this statement is a common table expression, an xmlnamespaces clause or a change tracking context clause, the previous statement must be terminated with a semicolon. 

NB. I have tried putting semicolons in and get this error

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 5 Incorrect syntax near ';'. Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 9 Incorrect syntax near ';'. 

Probably not relevant but this is on SQL 2008.

Answer 1

I think it should be something like:

WITH      cte1 as (SELECT * from cdr.Location),     cte2 as (SELECT * from cdr.Location) select * from cte1 union select * from cte2 

Basically, WITH is just a clause here, and like the other clauses that take lists, ‘,’ is the appropriate delimiter.