Question

i have variable in sql server like

DECLARE @Country varchar(max)
SET @Country='GB,US'

here country name is stored and separated by comma. i want to change and store the value in
Country variable like ”GB’,’US’,’DE’,’FR”.

so i was trying by using stuff function like

DECLARE @Country varchar(max)
SET @Country='GB,US'
SELECT @Country=STUFF((SELECT ''', ''' + @Country
              FOR XML PATH ('')),
              1, 2, '')
print @Country

so please me to achieve it. if i could store country name like ”GB’,’US’,’DE’,’FR” this way into country variable then i can issue a query like

select * from my table where country in ( @Country)

please help thanks

Answer 1

You can’t do it this way because @country is still seen as a single variable to SQL Server, not an array (there is no such thing as an array in SQL Server).

A couple of workarounds:

1 generate dynamic SQL

DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX);
SET @sql = N'SELECT * FROM dbo.mytable WHERE country IN (' + CHAR(39) 
    + REPLACE(@Country, ',', CHAR(39) + ',' + CHAR(39)) 
    + CHAR(39) + ');';

2 dump the comma-separated values into a split TVF (see this question for an approach, or this blog post for perf comparisons of multiple approaches).