Question

I’m using sql… I have a table name Table1 with 2 columns: column1 and column2. First i need to select both columns where column 1 contains “andrew” or “brandon”. Then i want to compare within column2 and return the results for strings that are similar for the fields within column2.

column1 column2
andrew  hi
brandon hello
andrew  hello
carl    hi

return:

brandon hello
andrew  hello

Answer 1

Since you want to compare two rows, you can’t really get away without a JOIN or subquery. If I understand you correctly, this should do what you want in “any database” SQL;

SELECT t1a.* 
FROM Table1 t1a 
JOIN Table1 t1b
  ON t1a.column2 = t1b.column2 AND t1a.column1 <> t1b.column1
WHERE t1a.column1 in ('andrew', 'brandon') AND 
      t1b.column1 IN ('andrew', 'brandon');

Demo here.