sql server select column by number

Question

Can I select specific columns by the number of the columns in SQL? Something like

SELECT columns(0), columns(3), columns(5), columns(8) FROM TABLE
         


        

Answer 1

Use UNPIVOT to convert columns to rows. Goes something like this:

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10

124000 124001 124002 124003 124004 124005 124006 124007 124008 124009

-- Converts columns into rows in table #JobNos1

SELECT JobNo INTO #JobNos1 FROM

(SELECT F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10 FROM #YourTable) AS cp

UNPIVOT

(JobNo FOR JobNos IN (F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10)) AS up

124000

124001

124002

124003

124004

124005

124006

124007

124008

124009

-- It needs a way to select to row so Row # is added to #JobNos2

CREATE TABLE #JobNos2(JobNo int, Row int)

INSERT INTO #JobNos2

SELECT JobNo, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 100)) AS Row from #JobNos1

Then you can do something like this:

SET @jobno = SELECT JobNo from #JobNos2 where Row = @SomeRowNumber