Question

I have a table [Book] in a database that has a [AuthorId] and [Description] columns. The other table [Author] is related to the [Book] via foreign key [Book].[AuthorId] -> [Author].[ID].

I’d like to update the [Book].[Description] column with the text "Nice book from #Author#", where #Author# is the name of the author taken from the [Author].[Name].

Something like this:

UPDATE [Book] SET [Description] = 'Nice book from ' + [Author].[Name]

but the problem is that I don’t know if there is a way to join the author and the book from within the UPDATE statement, so that each updated row will know it’s author’s name.

Is this possible in a single SQL query?

Answer 1

update Book 
  set Description = 'Nice book from '+Author.Name
from Author
where Book.AuthorID = Author.AuthorID