How can I delete duplicate rows in a table

Question

I have a table with say 3 columns. There\'s no primary key so there can be duplicate rows. I need to just keep one and delete the others. Any idea how to do this is Sql Serv

Answer 1

What about this solution :

First you execute the following query :

  select 'set rowcount ' + convert(varchar,COUNT(*)-1) + ' delete from MyTable where field=''' + field +'''' + ' set rowcount 0'  from mytable group by field having COUNT(*)>1

And then you just have to execute the returned result set

set rowcount 3 delete from Mytable where field='foo' set rowcount 0
....
....
set rowcount 5 delete from Mytable where field='bar' set rowcount 0

I've handled the case when you've got only one column, but it's pretty easy to adapt the same approach tomore than one column. Let me know if you want me to post the code.