Is there a combination of “LIKE” and “IN” in SQL?

Question

In SQL I (sadly) often have to use \"LIKE\" conditions due to databases that violate nearly every rule of normalization. I can\'t change that right now. But tha

Answer 1

For Sql Server you can resort to Dynamic SQL.

Most of the time in such situations you have the parameter of IN clause based on some data from database.

The example below is a little "forced", but this can match various real cases found in legacy databases.

Suppose you have table Persons where person names are stored in a single field PersonName as FirstName + ' ' + LastName. You need to select all persons from a list of first names, stored in field NameToSelect in table NamesToSelect, plus some additional criteria (like filtered on gender, birth date, etc)

You can do it as follows

-- @gender is nchar(1), @birthDate is date 

declare 
  @sql nvarchar(MAX),
  @subWhere nvarchar(MAX)
  @params nvarchar(MAX)

-- prepare the where sub-clause to cover LIKE IN (...)
-- it will actually generate where clause PersonName Like 'param1%' or PersonName Like 'param2%' or ...   
set @subWhere = STUFF(
  (
    SELECT ' OR PersonName like ''' + [NameToSelect] + '%''' 
        FROM [NamesToSelect] t FOR XML PATH('')
  ), 1, 4, '')

-- create the dynamic SQL
set @sql ='select 
      PersonName
      ,Gender
      ,BirstDate    -- and other field here         
  from [Persons]
  where 
    Gender = @gender
    AND BirthDate = @birthDate
    AND (' + @subWhere + ')'

set @params = ' @gender nchar(1),
  @birthDate Date'     

EXECUTE sp_executesql @sql, @params,    
  @gender,  
  @birthDate