Unpivoting multiple columns.

  • hi all,

    I want to unpivot multiple columns in my table and i came across this article

    http://mangalpardeshi.blogspot.com/2009/04/unpivot-multiple-columns.html

    This blog is very nice ,but the problem i have is i don't have an ID column in my table , i am not getting good results with out the where condition

    WHERE RIGHT(Suppliers,1) = RIGHT(Cities,1) in the blog .

    Is there any way i can unpivot multiple columns for the example in the blog with out a ID(unique) column?

  • srilu_bannu (4/15/2011)


    hi all,

    I want to unpivot multiple columns in my table and i came across this article

    http://mangalpardeshi.blogspot.com/2009/04/unpivot-multiple-columns.html

    This blog is very nice ,but the problem i have is i don't have an ID column in my table , i am not getting good results with out the where condition

    WHERE RIGHT(Suppliers,1) = RIGHT(Cities,1) in the blog .

    Is there any way i can unpivot multiple columns for the example in the blog with out a ID(unique) column?

    There's a huge performance problem associated with the code in the blog. It has an "Accidental CUBE Join" (Also known as a Double Cross Join) it it. If you use the test data and the code provided in that article and run it with the Actual Execution Plan turned on, you'll find an arrow which shows that 27 rows (3 sets * 3 rows * 3 unpivots) have been spawned interally. With the addition of a 4th row, 36 internal rows are generated. With 1000 rows, 9000 internal rows would be generated. In other words, the code will take 9 times longer and use 9 times the number of resources than it needs to.

    Further, as you've already found out, the code also relies on joins that you may not have available.

    Try something like this, instead... it only creates the same number of internal rows as what will appear in the final output and it was done without the ID column that you say you don't have... and the code is a whole lot less complex, as well. This code has been tested against the code provided in the blog article you provided the link for.

    SELECT s.Product, d.Supplier, d.City

    FROM dbo.Suppliers s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Supplier1, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Supplier2, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Supplier3, City3

    ) d (Supplier, City)

    GO

    Hat's off to Paul White for first showing me this method.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Just what I needed !!!

    Hats off for sharing this very nice solution!

  • Amazing!

  • Thank you both for the kind feedback.

    For those looking to modernize (even though a bit less obvious to read, IMHO), we can change the multiple SELECT/UNION ALLs to VALUES, thusly.

    SELECT s.Product, d.Supplier, d.City

    FROM dbo.Suppliers s

    CROSS APPLY (VALUES

    (Supplier1, City1)

    ,(Supplier2, City2)

    ,(Supplier3, City3)

    ) d (Supplier, City)

    ;

    Please not that the change does NOT make the code any faster so, when it comes to readability, use your own preference or follow the standards that may be enforced in your shop.

    Also notice that the code above does NOT work in version 2005. The original works in all versions from 2005 and up.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • I cannot resist pitching in another method using a Tally type cross-tab, which performs at least as good as the method Jeff posted, although it doesn't result in a parallel plan. The difference isn't great on smaller and simpler sets, somewhat greater on larger and more complex sets.

    😎

    Simple sample set and the two methods

    USE tempdb;

    GO

    SET NOCOUNT ON;

    IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA;

    CREATE TABLE dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA

    (

    ROW_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED NOT NULL

    ,Airline VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft1 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft2 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft3 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,City1 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,City2 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    ,City3 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

    )

    INSERT INTO dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA

    (

    Airline

    ,Aircraft1

    ,Aircraft2

    ,Aircraft3

    ,City1

    ,City2

    ,City3

    )

    VALUES

    ('AZ','A319','A320','A330','FCO','LIN','MXP')

    ,('BA','A380','B747','A320','LHR','LGW','LCY')

    ,('DL','B777','A330','B757','DTW','BOS','LAX')

    ,('AA','B767','B777','A319','DFW','JFK','ORD')

    ,('NW','A320','B757','MD90','MSP','SLC','SEA')

    ,('KL','B747','A380','B737','AMS','CDG','TPE')

    ;

    RAISERROR('CROSS APPLY UNION',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    SELECT s.Airline, d.Aircraft, d.City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Aircraft1, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City3

    ) d (Aircraft, City);

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('TALLY CASE',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    ;WITH NUMA(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    SELECT

    SD.Airline

    ,CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.Aircraft1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.Aircraft2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.Aircraft3

    END AS Aircraft

    ,CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.City1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.City2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.City3

    END AS City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA SD

    CROSS JOIN NUMA NA

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    Output

    CROSS APPLY UNION

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    SQL Server parse and compile time:

    CPU time = 15 ms, elapsed time = 21 ms.

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 0 ms.

    TALLY CASE

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    SQL Server parse and compile time:

    CPU time = 4 ms, elapsed time = 4 ms.

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 0 ms, elapsed time = 0 ms.

    A test set generator

    USE tempdb;

    GO

    SET NOCOUNT ON;

    IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA;

    CREATE TABLE dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA

    (

    ROW_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED NOT NULL

    ,Airline VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft1 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft2 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,Aircraft3 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,City1 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,City2 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    ,City3 VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL

    )

    DECLARE @SAMPLE_SIZE INT = 10000000;

    ;WITH T(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL)) AS X(N))

    , NUMS(N) AS (SELECT TOP(@SAMPLE_SIZE) ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS N FROM T T1,T T2,T T3,T T4,T T5,T T6,T T7,T T8,T T9)

    ,BASE_SAMPLE AS

    (

    SELECT

    STUFF(REPLICATE('0',LEN(@SAMPLE_SIZE) + 1),(LEN(@SAMPLE_SIZE) + 2) - LEN(NM.N),LEN(NM.N),CAST(NM.N AS VARCHAR(10))) AS KEY_COLUMN

    ,REPLACE(NEWID(),'-','X') AS SAMPLE_STRING

    FROM NUMS NM

    )

    INSERT INTO dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA

    (

    Airline

    ,Aircraft1

    ,Aircraft2

    ,Aircraft3

    ,City1

    ,City2

    ,City3

    )

    SELECT

    BS.KEY_COLUMN

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING, 1, 3)

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING, 4, 3)

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING, 7, 3)

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING,10, 3)

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING,13, 3)

    ,SUBSTRING(BS.SAMPLE_STRING,16, 3)

    FROM BASE_SAMPLE BS;

  • Very clever.

    As you know, I'm one of those people that absolutely love Tally-Table-like constructs but, as I've also said, it's not a panacea of performance. In this case, it requires what I believe to be some unnecessary complexity and, although it performs in roughly the same amount of time, does require 3 times the number of reads on the million row example.

    My suggestion would be to go with the simplest code in this case especially because it uses only a third of the IO even if it is logical reads.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden (11/15/2014)


    Very clever.

    😀

    As you know, I'm one of those people that absolutely love Tally-Table-like constructs but, as I've also said, it's not a panacea of performance. In this case, it requires what I believe to be some unnecessary complexity and, although it performs in roughly the same amount of time, does require 3 times the number of reads on the million row example.

    My suggestion would be to go with the simplest code in this case especially because it uses only a third of the IO even if it is logical reads.

    I fully agree that the simpler method is better when working with a simple transposition, in those cases, the Tally CrossTab is an overkill, but it doesn't take much increase in complexity to make it more attractive. As an example, in the previous sample the transposition can be described as A(B_n,C_n) where n is the number of column pairs, each key(A) will produce n number of lines. By expanding the product to A(BC), that is all combinations of Aircraft and City, the CROSS APPLY UNION method requires either a mapping of the Cartesian join in the subquery, where the code quickly becomes somewhat illegible or an introduction of another CROSS APPLY, which seriously hurts the performance.

    😎

    Quick code sample for the previous data sample

    NOTE: this is a comparison of two unpivoting/transposing methods, this code will NOT produce the correct results for the posted problem!

    USE tempdb;

    GO

    SET NOCOUNT ON;

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_01 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_02 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_03 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    RAISERROR('CROSS APPLY UNION',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = d.Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = d.City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Aircraft1, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft1, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft1, City3 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City3 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City3

    ) d (Aircraft, City);

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('CROSS APPLY UNION 2',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = s.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = d.Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = C.City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Aircraft1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3

    ) d (Aircraft)

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT City3

    ) c (City)

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('TALLY CASE',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    ;WITH NUMA(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    , NUMB(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = SD.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.Aircraft1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.Aircraft2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.Aircraft3

    END --AS Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = CASE

    WHEN NB.N = 1 THEN SD.City1

    WHEN NB.N = 2 THEN SD.City2

    WHEN NB.N = 3 THEN SD.City3

    END --AS City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA SD

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NA

    OUTER APPLY NUMB NB

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('TALLY CASE 2',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    ;WITH NUMA(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = SD.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.Aircraft1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.Aircraft2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.Aircraft3

    END --AS Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = CASE

    WHEN NB.N = 1 THEN SD.City1

    WHEN NB.N = 2 THEN SD.City2

    WHEN NB.N = 3 THEN SD.City3

    END --AS City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA SD

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NA

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NB

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    Output (10^6 rows)

    CROSS APPLY UNION

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 5, logical reads 6907, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 4463 ms, elapsed time = 1822 ms.

    CROSS APPLY UNION 2

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 5, logical reads 6907, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 5568 ms, elapsed time = 1917 ms.

    TALLY CASE

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 6829, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 1670 ms, elapsed time = 1685 ms.

    TALLY CASE 2

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 6829, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 1653 ms, elapsed time = 1662 ms.

    Edit: added a NOTE

  • Eirikur Eiriksson (11/16/2014)


    Jeff Moden (11/15/2014)


    Very clever.

    😀

    As you know, I'm one of those people that absolutely love Tally-Table-like constructs but, as I've also said, it's not a panacea of performance. In this case, it requires what I believe to be some unnecessary complexity and, although it performs in roughly the same amount of time, does require 3 times the number of reads on the million row example.

    My suggestion would be to go with the simplest code in this case especially because it uses only a third of the IO even if it is logical reads.

    I fully agree that the simpler method is better when working with a simple transposition, in those cases, the Tally CrossTab is an overkill, but it doesn't take much increase in complexity to make it more attractive. As an example, in the previous sample the transposition can be described as A(B_n,C_n) where n is the number of column pairs, each key(A) will produce n number of lines. By expanding the product to A(BC), that is all combinations of Aircraft and City, the CROSS APPLY UNION method requires either a mapping of the Cartesian join in the subquery, where the code quickly becomes somewhat illegible or an introduction of another CROSS APPLY, which seriously hurts the performance.

    😎

    Quick code sample for the previous data sample

    USE tempdb;

    GO

    SET NOCOUNT ON;

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_01 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_02 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    DECLARE @CHAR_BUCKET_03 VARCHAR(10) = '';

    RAISERROR('CROSS APPLY UNION',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = d.Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = d.City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Aircraft1, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft1, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft1, City3 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2, City3 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3, City3

    ) d (Aircraft, City);

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('CROSS APPLY UNION 2',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = s.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = d.Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = C.City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA s

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT Aircraft1 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft2 UNION ALL

    SELECT Aircraft3

    ) d (Aircraft)

    CROSS APPLY (

    SELECT City1 UNION ALL

    SELECT City2 UNION ALL

    SELECT City3

    ) c (City)

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('TALLY CASE',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    ;WITH NUMA(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    , NUMB(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = SD.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.Aircraft1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.Aircraft2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.Aircraft3

    END --AS Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = CASE

    WHEN NB.N = 1 THEN SD.City1

    WHEN NB.N = 2 THEN SD.City2

    WHEN NB.N = 3 THEN SD.City3

    END --AS City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA SD

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NA

    OUTER APPLY NUMB NB

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    RAISERROR('TALLY CASE 2',1,1) WITH NOWAIT;

    SET STATISTICS IO, TIME ON;

    ;WITH NUMA(N) AS (SELECT N FROM (VALUES (1),(2),(3))AS X(N))

    SELECT

    @CHAR_BUCKET_01 = SD.Airline

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_02 = CASE

    WHEN NA.N = 1 THEN SD.Aircraft1

    WHEN NA.N = 2 THEN SD.Aircraft2

    WHEN NA.N = 3 THEN SD.Aircraft3

    END --AS Aircraft

    ,@CHAR_BUCKET_03 = CASE

    WHEN NB.N = 1 THEN SD.City1

    WHEN NB.N = 2 THEN SD.City2

    WHEN NB.N = 3 THEN SD.City3

    END --AS City

    FROM dbo.TBL_SAMPLE_DATA SD

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NA

    OUTER APPLY NUMA NB

    SET STATISTICS TIME, IO OFF;

    Output (10^6 rows)

    CROSS APPLY UNION

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 5, logical reads 6907, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 4463 ms, elapsed time = 1822 ms.

    CROSS APPLY UNION 2

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 5, logical reads 6907, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 5568 ms, elapsed time = 1917 ms.

    TALLY CASE

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 6829, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 1670 ms, elapsed time = 1685 ms.

    TALLY CASE 2

    Msg 50000, Level 1, State 1

    Table 'TBL_SAMPLE_DATA'. Scan count 1, logical reads 6829, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 0, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 0.

    SQL Server Execution Times:

    CPU time = 1653 ms, elapsed time = 1662 ms.

    Careful now... If there are 3 column pairs for AirCraft and City, each pair of which is supposed to return a single row (i.e. 3 un-pivoted rows for each original row), then none of the queries above are correct because, in the presence of 1*10^6 original rows, the result set returns 9*10^6 rows instead of 3*10^6 rows.

    While that may be what you intended, it's not the solution for the given problem.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden (11/16/2014)


    Careful now... If there are 3 column pairs for AirCraft and City, each pair of which is supposed to return a single row (i.e. 3 un-pivoted rows for each original row), then none of the queries above are correct because, in the presence of 1*10^6 original rows, the result set returns 9*10^6 rows instead of 3*10^6 rows.

    While that may be what you intended, it's not the solution for the given problem.

    Absolutely right, the last code example is not a correct solution to the problem, it's a comparison of two unpivoting/transposing methods.

    😎

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