SQL query for finding the longest name and shortest name in a table

Question

I have a table with one of the columns is of type varchar(city). and want to find the longest and shortest of values stored in that column.

select a.city, a.city         


        

Answer 1

This is an approach with a CTE. First it finds the longest and shortest, than the matching cities:

DECLARE @tbl TABLE(CityName VARCHAR(100));
INSERT INTO @tbl VALUES ('xy'),('Long name'),('very long name'),('middle'),('extremely long name');

WITH MyCTE AS 
(
    SELECT MAX(LEN(CityName)) AS Longest
          ,MIN(LEN(CityName)) AS Shortest
    FROM @tbl
)
SELECT * 
FROM MyCTE
--You must think about the chance of more than one city matching the given length
CROSS APPLY(SELECT TOP 1 CityName FROM @tbl WHERE LEN(CityName)=Longest) AS LongestCity(LongName)
CROSS APPLY(SELECT TOP 1 CityName FROM @tbl WHERE LEN(CityName)=Shortest) AS ShortestCity(ShortName)

The result

Longest Shortest    LongName               ShortName
19       2          extremely long name    xy