SQL Server (2008) Pass ArrayList or String to SP for IN()

Question

I was wondering how I can pass either an ArrayList, List> or StringBuilder comma delimited list to a stored procedure such that I find a list of IDs usin

Answer 1

In SQL 2008 there are table-valued-parameters, that make a friendly alternative to parsing CSV; see here for an example.

Otherwise, another option is xml - the xml data type in SQL Server allows you to read this pretty easily (although it takes more transfer bytes).

Answer 2

You could use a User Defined function such as

CREATE function [dbo].[csl_to_table] ( @list nvarchar(MAX) )
RETURNS @list_table TABLE ([id] INT)
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE     @index INT,
            @start_index INT,
            @id INT

    SELECT @index = 1 
    SELECT @start_index = 1
    WHILE @index <= DATALENGTH(@list)
    BEGIN

        IF SUBSTRING(@list,@index,1) = ','
        BEGIN

            SELECT @id = CAST(SUBSTRING(@list, @start_index, @index - @start_index ) AS INT)
            INSERT @list_table ([id]) VALUES (@id)
            SELECT @start_index = @index + 1
        END
        SELECT @index  = @index + 1
    END
    SELECT @id = CAST(SUBSTRING(@list, @start_index, @index - @start_index ) AS INT)
    INSERT @list_table ([id]) VALUES (@id)
    RETURN
END

Which accepts an nvarchar comma separated list of ids and returns a table of those ids as ints. You can then join on the returned table in your stored procedure like so -

DECLARE @passed_in_ids TABLE (id INT)

INSERT INTO @passed_in_ids (id)
  SELECT 
    id 
  FROM
    [dbo].[csl_to_table] (@your_passed_in_csl)

SELECT *
FROM 
myTable
INNER JOIN
@passed_in_ids ids
ON
myTable.id = ids.id