Question

I made a mistake in a bulk insert script, so now i have “duplicate” rows with different colX. I need to delete this duplicate rows, but I cant figure out how. To be more precise, I have this:

 col1 | col2 | col3 | colX      
----+----------------------
  0   |  1   |  2   |  a
  0   |  1   |  2   |  b
  0   |  1   |  2   |  c
  0   |  1   |  2   |  a
  3   |  4   |  5   |  x
  3   |  4   |  5   |  y
  3   |  4   |  5   |  x
  3   |  4   |  5   |  z

and I want to keep the first occurrence of each (row, colX):

 col1 | col2 | col3 | colX      
----+----------------------
  0   |  1   |  2   |  a
  3   |  4   |  5   |  x

Thank you for your replies 🙂

Answer 1

Try the simplest approach with Sql Server’s CTE: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/2d386/2

Data:

CREATE TABLE tbl
    ([col1] int, [col2] int, [col3] int, [colX] varchar(1));

INSERT INTO tbl
    ([col1], [col2], [col3], [colX])
VALUES
    (0, 1, 2, 'a'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'b'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'c'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'a'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'x'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'y'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'x'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'z');

Solution:

select * from tbl;

with a as
(
  select row_number() over(partition by col1 order by col2, col3, colX) as rn 
  from tbl   
)
delete from a where rn > 1;

select * from tbl;

Output:

| COL1 | COL2 | COL3 | COLX |
-----------------------------
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    b |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    c |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    y |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    z |


| COL1 | COL2 | COL3 | COLX |
-----------------------------
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |

---

Or perhaps this: http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!3/af826/1

Data:

CREATE TABLE tbl
    ([col1] int, [col2] int, [col3] int, [colX] varchar(1));

INSERT INTO tbl
    ([col1], [col2], [col3], [colX])
VALUES
    (0, 1, 2, 'a'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'b'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'c'),
    (0, 1, 2, 'a'),
    (0, 1, 3, 'a'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'x'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'y'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'x'),
    (3, 4, 5, 'z');

Solution:

select * from tbl;


with a as
(
    select row_number() over(partition by col1, col2, col3 order by colX) as rn 
    from tbl   
)
delete from a where rn > 1;

select * from tbl;

Output:

| COL1 | COL2 | COL3 | COLX |
-----------------------------
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    b |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    c |
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    0 |    1 |    3 |    a |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    y |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    z |

| COL1 | COL2 | COL3 | COLX |
-----------------------------
|    0 |    1 |    2 |    a |
|    0 |    1 |    3 |    a |
|    3 |    4 |    5 |    x |