Question

In SQL Server 2008, is there a way to insert rows while omitting those rows that cause a foreign key constraint to fail?

E.g. I have an insert statement similar to this:

insert into tblFoo(id, name, parent_id, desc) values 
(1, 'a', 1, null),
(2, 'c', 3, 'blah'),
....;

parent_id is a fk to another table. How can I then get sql server to skip rows on which the fk column is invalid?

Update I would like to get this to work automatically, without first having to filter out those rows that violates the fk constraint. The reason for that is because the insert statements are generated by a program so it is not known beforehand which foreign keys exist on each table.

Answer 1

Is a weird situation you got there but you can insert the values to a temporary table and then select only the values with a valid FK.

something like:

declare @tempTable table (
    id int, 
    name nvarchar(50) ,
    parent_id int ,
    [desc] nvarchar(50) 
)

insert into @tempTable values
(1, 'a', 1, null),
(2, 'c', 3, 'blah')

insert into tblFoo(id, name, parent_id, [desc])
select tempTable.* from @tempTable as tempTable
inner join parent_id on parent_id.id = tempTable.parent_id