Question

I am working in mssql database. I have the following scenario,

I have values in row as

2-5,10-12,67-89….

I need a sql query to fetch only those rows which has atleast one range that contains the user input.

For ex if the user input is 4, then there should be atleast one range that contains 4 like (1-5).

Is it possible to achieve the same with single query.

Answer 1

Try this:

DECLARE @numberToFind INT = 4;
;WITH CTE
AS
(
    SELECT 
      arange,
      SUBSTRING(arange, 1, CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) - 1) "From",
      SUBSTRING(arange, 
                CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) + 1, 
                          LEN(arange) - CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) + 1) "To"
    FROM @ranges
) 
SELECT arange
FROM CTE
WHERE @numberToFind BETWEEN "From" AND "To";

SQL Fiddle Demo

If these ranges are stored as a single varchar string, then you have to parse these comma separated ranges first like so:

DECLARE @ranges VARCHAR(100) = ('2-5,10-12,67-89');
declare @numberToFind INT = 4;

DECLARE @Xml xml =  CONVERT(xml,
                            '<root><s>' + 
                            REPLACE(@ranges, ',', '</s><s>') + 
                            '</s></root>');

;WITH ParsedRanges
AS
(
    SELECT arange = T.c.value('.','varchar(20)')
    FROM @Xml.nodes('/root/s') T(c)
), CTE
AS
(
    SELECT 
      arange,
      SUBSTRING(arange, 1, CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) - 1) "From",
      SUBSTRING(arange, 
                CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) + 1, 
                LEN(arange) - CHARINDEX('-', arange,1) + 1) "To"
    FROM ParsedRanges
) 
SELECT arange
FROM CTE
WHERE @numberToFind BETWEEN "From" AND "To";

SQL Fiddle Demo