MySQL Syntax error message “Operand should contain 1 column(s)”

Question

I tried running the following statement:

INSERT INTO VOUCHER (VOUCHER_NUMBER, BOOK_ID, DENOMINATION)
SELECT (a.number, b.ID, b.DENOMINATION) 
FROM temp_cheques a, BOOK b
WHERE a.number BETWEEN b.START_NUMBER AND b.START_NUMBER+b.UNITS-1;

which, as I understand it, should insert into VOUCHER each record from temp_cheques with the ID and DENOMINATION fields corresponding to entries in the BOOK table (temp_cheques comes from a database backup, which I'm trying to recreate in a different format). However, when I run it, I get an error:

Error: Operand should contain 1 column(s)
SQLState:  21000
ErrorCode: 1241

I'm running this in SQuirrel and have not had issues with any other queries. Is there something wrong with the syntax of my query?

EDIT:

The structure of BOOK is:

ID  int(11)
START_NUMBER    int(11)
UNITS   int(11)
DENOMINATION    double(5,2)

The structure of temp_cheques is:

ID  int(11)
number  varchar(20)

Answer 1

Try removing the parenthesis from the SELECT clause. From Microsoft TechNet, the correct syntax for an INSERT statement using a SELECT clause is the following.

INSERT INTO MyTable  (PriKey, Description)
       SELECT ForeignKey, Description
       FROM SomeView

---

The error you're getting, "The SELECT would examine more than MAX_JOIN_SIZE rows; check your WHERE and use SET SQL_BIG_SELECTS=1 or SET SQL_MAX_JOIN_SIZE=# if the SELECT is okay.", is actually correct, assuming you have many rows in both BOOK and temp_cheques. You are trying to query all rows from both tables and make a cross-reference, resulting in an m*n size query. SQL Server is trying to warn you of this, before performing a potentially long operation.

Set SQL_BIG_SELECTS = 1 before running this statement, and try again. It should work, but note that this operation may take a long time.

Answer 2

Does B contain the UNITS column?

What is the table structure for temp_cheques and Book?

EDIT: As I said in comments, all the columns should be numeric when doing +/- and when comparing.
Does the following simple SELECT work?

SELECT b.START_NUMBER+b.UNITS-1 FROM Books B

Answer 3

I don't have a MySQL instance handy, but my first guess is the WHERE clause:

WHERE a.number BETWEEN b.START_NUMBER AND b.START_NUMBER+b.UNITS-1;

I imagine that the MySQL parser may be interpreting that as:

WHERE number
(BETWEEN start_number AND start_number) + units - 1

Try wrapping everything in parentheses, ie:

WHERE a.number BETWEEN b.START_NUMBER AND (b.START_NUMBER + b.UNITS - 1);

Answer 4

The final version of the query is as follows:

Set SQL_BIG_SELECTS = 1;
INSERT INTO VOUCHER (VOUCHER_NUMBER, BOOK_ID, DENOMINATION)
SELECT a.number, b.ID, b.DENOMINATION
FROM temp_cheques a, BOOK b
WHERE a.number BETWEEN b.START_NUMBER AND (b.START_NUMBER+b.UNITS-1);

The parsing of the BETWEEN statement required parentheses, the SELECT did not, and because of the size of the two tables (215000 records in temp_cheques, 8000 in BOOK) I was breaking a limit on the select size, requiring me to set SQL_BIG_SELECTS = 1.

Answer 5

I ran into the same error when using Spring Repositories.

My repository contained a method like:

List<SomeEntity> findAllBySomeId(List<String> ids);

This is working fine when running integration tests against an in-memory database (h2). However against a stand alone database like MySql is was failing with the same error.

I've solved it by changing the method interface to:

List<someEntity findBySomeIdIn(List<String> ids);

Note: there is no difference between find and findAll. As described here: Spring Data JPA difference between findBy / findAllBy