How to delete duplicate rows in SQL Server?

Question

How can I delete duplicate rows where no unique row id exists?

My table is

col1  col2 col3 col4 col5 col6 col7
john  1          


        

Answer 1

Another way of removing dublicated rows without loosing information in one step is like following:

delete from dublicated_table t1 (nolock)
join (
    select t2.dublicated_field
    , min(len(t2.field_kept)) as min_field_kept
    from dublicated_table t2 (nolock)
    group by t2.dublicated_field having COUNT(*)>1
) t3 
on t1.dublicated_field=t3.dublicated_field 
    and len(t1.field_kept)=t3.min_field_kept