Define variable to use with IN operator (T-SQL)

Question

I have a Transact-SQL query that uses the IN operator. Something like this:

select * from myTable where myColumn in (1,2,3,4)

Is there a wa

Answer 1

If you want to do this without using a second table, you can do a LIKE comparison with a CAST:

DECLARE @myList varchar(15)
SET @myList = ',1,2,3,4,'

SELECT *
FROM myTable
WHERE @myList LIKE '%,' + CAST(myColumn AS varchar(15)) + ',%'

If the field you're comparing is already a string then you won't need to CAST.

Surrounding both the column match and each unique value in commas will ensure an exact match. Otherwise, a value of 1 would be found in a list containing ',4,2,15,'