UNION ALL query: “Too Many Fields Defined”

Question

I\'m trying to get a UNION of 3 tables, each of which have 97 fields. I\'ve tried the following:

select * from table1
union all
select * from table2
union a         


        

Answer 1

It appears that the number of fields being tracked (limit 255) is counted against ALL parts of the UNION ALL. So 3 x 97 = 291, which is in excess. You could probably create a query as a UNION all of 2 parts, then another query with that and the 3rd part.

Answer 2

Perhaps if your 3 tables have duplicate records you can go with UNION instead of UNION ALL which may reduce the number of fields to be tracked. Because UNION will always serve the business purpose which removes duplicates. In that case your query will be like following,

select * from table1
union
select * from table2
union
select * from table3;

Answer 3

I had two tables with 173 fields each (2 x 173 > 255!). So I had to resort to splitting the tables in half (keeping the primary key in both), before using the UNION statement and reassembling the resulting output tables using a JOIN.

    select u1.*, u2.* 
    from (
      select [field1_PKID],[field2],...,[field110] 
      from table1

      union all

      select [field1_PKID],[field2],...,[field110] 
      from table2
      ) as u1
    inner join (
      select [field1_PKID],[field111],...,[field173] 
      from table1

      union all 

      select [field1_PKID],[field111],...,[field173] 
      from table2
      ) as u2
    on [u1].[field1_PKID] = [u2].[field2_PKID]