Question

I need to shorten this query and while I’m pretty good at SQL, I’m still learning.

    SELECT         'doejoh',         DATETIME,         [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]      FROM         dbo.Logs      WHERE         LEFT([Recipient-Address], 6) IN ('doejoh')  UNION ALL      SELECT         'doejoh',         DATETIME,         [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]      FROM         dbo.Logs      WHERE         LEFT([Recipient-Address], 10) IN ('john.doe@g')  UNION ALL      SELECT         'doejoh',         DATETIME,         [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]      FROM         dbo.Logs      WHERE             LEFT([Sender-Address], 6) IN ('doejoh')      UNION ALL      SELECT         'doejoh',         DATETIME,         [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]      FROM         dbo.Logs      WHERE             LEFT([Sender-Address], 10) IN ('john.doe@g')     ORDER BY         DateTime 

I have to use this union, because in the same table, there are 4 different possibilities for each user and their email address. That being said, I have 30 users, so 30×4 would be 120 groups in this entire query. The reason the first column has to be the username is because I’m using that column in a Crystal Report.

I’m just looking to create some logic for my query that will shorten it down, while at the same time, ‘assigning’ each user to their appropriate first column.

Edited to add

While this will shorten my query, I’ll still have to have 30 unions:

SELECT    'doejoh',    DATETIME,    [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]  FROM    dbo.Logs  WHERE    LEFT([Recipient-Address], 6) IN ('doejoh') OR    LEFT([Recipient-Address], 10) IN ('john.doe@g') OR    LEFT([Sender-Address], 6) IN ('doejoh') OR    LEFT([Sender-Address], 10) IN ('john.doe@g') ORDER BY    DateTime 

Because the next user would be unioned to the previous one:

UNION ALL  SELECT    'doejan',    DATETIME,    [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address]  FROM    dbo.Logs  WHERE    LEFT([Recipient-Address], 6) IN ('doejan') OR    LEFT([Recipient-Address], 10) IN ('jane.doe@g') OR    LEFT([Sender-Address], 6) IN ('doejan') OR    LEFT([Sender-Address], 10) IN ('jan.doe@g') 

And so on and so forth… any shorter way?

Answer 1

Is there a reason something like this won’t work?

CREATE TABLE #TempNames (     shortname nvarchar(6),     longname nvarchar(10) )  INSERT INTO #TempNames (shortname, longname) VALUES('doejoh', 'john.doe@g') INSERT INTO #TempNames (shortname, longname) VALUES('doejan', 'jan.doe@g') INSERT INTO #TempNames (shortname, longname) VALUES('smibob', 'bob.smith@g')  SELECT     #TempName.shortname,     DATETIME,     [Recipient-Address], [Message-Subject], [Sender-Address] FROM     dbo.Logs INNER JOIN     #TempNames ON     LEFT([Recipient-Address], 6) = #TempNames.shortname OR     LEFT([Recipient-Address], 10) = #TempNames.longname OR     LEFT([Sender-Address], 6) = #TempNames.shortname OR     LEFT([Sender-Address], 10) = #TempNames.longname