Question

I am not good at SQL Server 2000. I have a comma-delimited list of ids. I need to see if that ID exists in a table. If it does, I want to break out of the loop with that ID saved in a variable that I can use in my stored procedure. This is what I am trying right now:

DECLARE @coreID INT
SET @coreID=NULL

DECLARE @itemID NVARCHAR(50)
DECLARE itemCursor CURSOR LOCAL FAST_FORWARD FOR
  SELECT [String] AS 'itemID' FROM dbo.SplitListIntoTable(@myIDs)

OPEN itemCursor
FETCH NEXT FROM itemCursor INTO @itemID
  WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN

  -- If @itemID EXISTS IN MyTable set @coreID=@itemID and Break. How do I do this?

  FETCH NEXT FROM itemCursor INTO @itemID
END

CLOSE itemCursor
DEALLOCATE itemCursor

Thank you!

Answer 1

Ideally, you shouldn’t use a cursor as performance won’t be great. If you can do it as a set-based statement, do that instead, maybe like this:

SELECT TOP 1 @CoreID = [String] 
FROM dbo.SplitListIntoTable(@myIDs) x
    JOIN MyTable t ON x.[String] = t.ID

However, if you have a real reason to use a cursor, you can use the BREAK statement to break out of a WHILE loop

e.g.

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 
    BEGIN
        IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE Id = @ItemID)
            BEGIN
                SET @CoreId = @ItemId
                BREAK
            END        

        FETCH NEXT FROM itemCursor INTO @itemID
    END