Question

If I have a table field named ‘description’, what would be the SQL (using MS SQL) to get a list of records of all distinct words used in this field.

For example:

If the table contains the following for the ‘description’ field:

Record1 'The dog jumped over the fence.' Record2 'The giant tripped on the fence.' ... 

The SQL record output would be:

'The','giant','dog','jumped','tripped','on','over','fence' 

Answer 1

I do not think you can do this with a SELECT. The best chance is to write a user defined function that returns a table with all the words and then do SELECT DISTINCT on it.

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Disclaimer: Function dbo.Split is from http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50648

CREATE TABLE test (     id int identity(1, 1) not null,     description varchar(50) not null )  INSERT INTO test VALUES('The dog jumped over the fence') INSERT INTO test VALUES('The giant tripped on the fence')  CREATE FUNCTION dbo.Split (     @RowData nvarchar(2000),     @SplitOn nvarchar(5) )   RETURNS @RtnValue table  (     Id int identity(1,1),     Data nvarchar(100) )  AS   BEGIN      Declare @Cnt int     Set @Cnt = 1      While (Charindex(@SplitOn,@RowData)>0)     Begin         Insert Into @RtnValue (data)         Select              Data = ltrim(rtrim(Substring(@RowData,1,Charindex(@SplitOn,@RowData)-1)))          Set @RowData = Substring(@RowData,Charindex(@SplitOn,@RowData)+1,len(@RowData))         Set @Cnt = @Cnt + 1     End      Insert Into @RtnValue (data)     Select Data = ltrim(rtrim(@RowData))      Return END  CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SplitAll(@SplitOn nvarchar(5)) RETURNS @RtnValue table (     Id int identity(1,1),     Data nvarchar(100) ) AS BEGIN DECLARE My_Cursor CURSOR FOR SELECT Description FROM dbo.test DECLARE @description varchar(50)  OPEN My_Cursor FETCH NEXT FROM My_Cursor INTO @description WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN     INSERT INTO @RtnValue     SELECT Data FROM dbo.Split(@description, @SplitOn)    FETCH NEXT FROM My_Cursor INTO @description END CLOSE My_Cursor DEALLOCATE My_Cursor  RETURN  END  SELECT DISTINCT Data FROM dbo.SplitAll(N' ')