SQL IN Clause 1000 item limit

Question

It is possible to put more than 1000 items in the SQL IN clause? We have been getting issues with our Oracle database not being able to handle it.

IF yes, how do we

Answer 1

There's another workaround for this that isn't mentioned in any of the other answers (or other answered questions):

Any in statement like x in (1,2,3) can be rewritten as (1,x) in ((1,1), (1,2), (1,3)) and the 1000 element limit will no longer apply. I've tested with an index on x and explain plan still reports that Oracle is using an access predicate and range scan.

Answer 2

Another way:

SELECT COL1, COL2, COL3 FROM YOUR_TABLE
WHERE 1=1
AND COL2 IN (
SELECT VAL1 as FAKE FROM DUAL
UNION
SELECT VAL2 as FAKE FROM DUAL
UNION
SELECT VAL3 as FAKE FROM DUAL
--...
)

Answer 3

You should transform the IN clauses to INNER JOIN clauses.

You can transform a query like this one

SELECT  foo   
FROM    bar   
WHERE bar.stuff IN  
       (SELECT  stuff FROM asdf)

in a query like this other one.

SELECT  b.foo 
FROM    ( 
        SELECT  DISTINCT stuff 
        FROM    asdf ) a 
JOIN    bar b 
ON      b.stuff = a.stuff

You will also gain a lot of performance

Answer 4

We can have more than one "IN" statement for the same variable.

For ex:

select val
 from table
where val in (1,2,3,...)
or
val in (7,8,9,....)