Question

So I’m trying to insert a small batch of rows (<10) at once into a table. The data is in a table-valued parameter, but I need to add some extra columns to it that are common to all the rows before inserting it. I’ve tried two ways of doing this:

INSERT INTO endTable
([col1],[col2],[commoncol1],[commoncol2])
SELECT
t.col1, t.col2, @CommonValue1, @CommonValue2
FROM startTable t

I’ve also tried to do it by putting the common variables into a temporary table variable, and then cross joining it with startTable, like this:

DECLARE @tempTable TABLE([temp1],[temp2])
INSERT INTO @tempTable(temp1,temp2) VALUES (@CommonValue1, @CommonValue2)

INSERT INTO endTable
([col1],[col2],[commoncol1],[commoncol2])
SELECT
a.col1, a.col2, b.temp1, b.temp2
FROM startTable a CROSS JOIN @tempTable b

Both of these attempts give the same error if and only if startTable has multiple rows:

Subquery returned more than 1 value. This is not permitted when the
subquery follows =, !=, <, <= , >, >= or when the subquery is used as
an expression.

I was hoping to accomplish these inserts without resorting to a loop, but I’m not incredibly familiar with SQL, so I don’t know if I’m out of luck, or if I’m missing something obvious. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Since your INSERT statement does not have a subquery, the error message doesn’t make sense. My guess is that you have a trigger on endTable that is throwing the error.

Run the following query to see if you have any triggers on endTable. If you do, then you will need to inspect the SQL in the trigger to see why it is throwing the error.

SELECT * 
FROM sys.triggers 
WHERE parent_id = OBJECT_ID(N'endTable')