Sql-server – Insert query with a subquery

This can be done in a single statement, but you have to wrap the sequence call in a function.

By calling a function in the select (as opposed to the sequence directly), you overcome the problem of getting ORA-02287 errors. However, the function will be called once for each row in A, which is not what you want.

This can be overcome by defining the function as deterministic. This allows Oracle to optimize the function so it is only executed once for each distinct parameter value passed in. To make this work in this case, you'll need to pass in ceil(x/2):

create or replace function f(p integer) return number deterministic  as
  l_retval pls_integer;
begin
  select my_seq.nextval into l_retval from dual;
  return l_retval;
end;
/

insert all 
    when mod(x,2) = 0 then
        into b (val) values (seq)
        into c (val) values (seq)
    else 
        into c (val) values (seq)
select x, f(ceil(x/2)) seq from a;


select * from b;

VAL
---
  1 
  2 

select * from c;

VAL
---
  1 
  2 
  1 
  2 

Not sure that this is simpler than a cursor solution, but here is what I would do:

Before we begin we need a few tables in a SQL Fiddle:

MS SQL Server 2012 Schema Setup

CREATE TABLE dbo.tbl1(c1 INT, c2 INT, c3 INT);
CREATE TABLE dbo.tbl2(c4 INT, c5 INT, c6 INT);
CREATE TABLE dbo.tbl3(c7 INT, c8 INT, c9 INT);

First we need the list of all user tables. For that we can use the sys.tables catalog view. The OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME() function gets us the schema name, the OBJECT_NAME() function the table name. The QUOTENAME() function quotes the names correctly, in case some of those contain special characters, key words or spaces. (In this example the use of OBJECT_NAME() is not strictly necessary as sys.tables has a name column, but I left it in as you can use this pattern with any catalog view that has an object_id column.)

Query 1:

SELECT 
  QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(T.object_id))+'.'+
  QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(T.object_id)) AS quoted_table_name,
  T.object_id
FROM sys.tables AS T;

Results:

| QUOTED_TABLE_NAME | OBJECT_ID |
|-------------------|-----------|
|      [dbo].[tbl1] | 245575913 |
|      [dbo].[tbl2] | 261575970 |
|      [dbo].[tbl3] | 277576027 |

The next step is to get the list of column names, again quoted. We can use the sys.columns catalog view for that.

Query 2:

SELECT C.name,C.column_id 
  FROM sys.columns AS C
 WHERE C.object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.tbl1');

Results:

| NAME | COLUMN_ID |
|------|-----------|
|   c1 |         1 |
|   c2 |         2 |
|   c3 |         3 |

The next hurdle is to get those columns in a comma separated list. There is no string concatenation aggregate function build in so we have to use a trick:

Query 3:

SELECT STUFF((
  SELECT ','+QUOTENAME(name)
    FROM sys.columns AS C
   WHERE C.object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.tbl1')
   ORDER BY C.column_id
     FOR XML PATH(''),TYPE
  ).value('.','NVARCHAR(MAX)'),1,1,'') AS clomun_list;

Results:

|    CLOMUN_LIST |
|----------------|
| [c1],[c2],[c3] |

With that all pieces are in place and we just have to put them all together:

Query 4:

SELECT 'SELECT ' +
       CL.column_list +
       ' FROM ' +
       QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(T.object_id)) + '.' +
       QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(T.object_id)) +
       ';' AS select_statement
FROM sys.tables AS T
CROSS APPLY (
  SELECT STUFF((
    SELECT ','+QUOTENAME(name)
      FROM sys.columns AS C
     WHERE C.object_id = T.object_id
     ORDER BY C.column_id
       FOR XML PATH(''),TYPE
    ).value('.','NVARCHAR(MAX)'),1,1,'') AS column_list
  )CL;

Results:

|                         SELECT_STATEMENT |
|------------------------------------------|
| SELECT [c1],[c2],[c3] FROM [dbo].[tbl1]; |
| SELECT [c4],[c5],[c6] FROM [dbo].[tbl2]; |
| SELECT [c7],[c8],[c9] FROM [dbo].[tbl3]; |

This example will work in SQL 2005 and later, assuming you are on the latest service pack. There is no clean solution to achieve this with SQL Server 2000. In that case you need to go back to your cursor solution.