Question

I am using SQL Server 2008. I have 2 table variables like

FirstName
==========
Little
John  
Baby  

LastName
==========
Timmy
Doe  
Jessica

And I want the result table be:

 First      Last   
=====================
 Little     Timmy    
 John       Doe      
 Baby       Jessica

Note that there is no PK can join the 2 tables. I am trying to use a cursor but not sure how to start.

—- Updated —–

I know it’s a rare case, but I am writing a script to clean up legacy data. The only way we know “Little” goes with “Timmy” is that they are both the first record of the table. Would it help if we had PK for the tables but there is no relation?

ID FirstName
==========
1  Little
2  John  
3  Baby  
----------

ID LastName
==========
4  Timmy
5  Doe  
6  Jessica
----------

I am not familiar with TSQL so I thought I can loop through the 2 tables like looping through Arrays in memory.

Answer 1

You could try something like this, to match up based on row numbers:

SELECT FirstName AS First, LastName AS Last
FROM
(
  SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ID) AS RowNum, FirstName
  FROM FirstName
) t1
INNER JOIN
(
  SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY ID) AS RowNum, LastName
  FROM LastName
) t2
ON t1.RowNum = t2.RowNum

But don’t take this as a signal that you don’t need keys.