[mysql] SQL split values to multiple rows

I have table :

id | name    
1  | a,b,c    
2  | b

i want output like this :

id | name    
1  | a    
1  | b    
1  | c    
2  | b

This question is related to mysql sql delimiter delimiter-separated-values

The answer is


CREATE PROCEDURE `getVal`()
BEGIN
        declare r_len integer;
        declare r_id integer;
        declare r_val varchar(20);
        declare i integer;
        DECLARE found_row int(10);
        DECLARE row CURSOR FOR select length(replace(val,"|","")),id,val from split;
        create table x(id int,name varchar(20));
      open row;
            select FOUND_ROWS() into found_row ;
            read_loop: LOOP
                IF found_row = 0 THEN
                         LEAVE read_loop;
                END IF;
            set i = 1;  
            FETCH row INTO r_len,r_id,r_val;
            label1: LOOP        
                IF i <= r_len THEN
                  insert into x values( r_id,SUBSTRING(replace(r_val,"|",""),i,1));
                  SET i = i + 1;
                  ITERATE label1;
                END IF;
                LEAVE label1;
            END LOOP label1;
            set found_row = found_row - 1;
            END LOOP;
        close row;
        select * from x;
        drop table x;
END

If the name column were a JSON array (like '["a","b","c"]'), then you could extract/unpack it with JSON_TABLE() (available since MySQL 8.0.4):

select t.id, j.name
from mytable t
join json_table(
  t.name,
  '$[*]' columns (name varchar(50) path '$')
) j;

Result:

| id  | name |
| --- | ---- |
| 1   | a    |
| 1   | b    |
| 1   | c    |
| 2   | b    |

View on DB Fiddle

If you store the values in a simple CSV format, then you would first need to convert it to JSON:

select t.id, j.name
from mytable t
join json_table(
  replace(json_array(t.name), ',', '","'),
  '$[*]' columns (name varchar(50) path '$')
) j

Result:

| id  | name |
| --- | ---- |
| 1   | a    |
| 1   | b    |
| 1   | c    |
| 2   | b    |

View on DB Fiddle


Here is my solution

-- Create the maximum number of words we want to pick (indexes in n)
with recursive n(i) as (
    select
        1 i
    union all
    select i+1 from n where i < 1000
)
select distinct
    s.id,
    s.oaddress,
    -- n.i,
    -- use the index to pick the nth word, the last words will always repeat. Remove the duplicates with distinct
    if(instr(reverse(trim(substring_index(s.oaddress,' ',n.i))),' ') > 0,
        reverse(substr(reverse(trim(substring_index(s.oaddress,' ',n.i))),1,
            instr(reverse(trim(substring_index(s.oaddress,' ',n.i))),' '))),
        trim(substring_index(s.oaddress,' ',n.i))) oth
from 
    app_schools s,
    n

My variant: stored procedure that takes table name, field names and delimiter as arguments. Inspired by post http://www.marcogoncalves.com/2011/03/mysql-split-column-string-into-rows/

delimiter $$

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS split_value_into_multiple_rows $$
CREATE PROCEDURE split_value_into_multiple_rows(tablename VARCHAR(20),
    id_column VARCHAR(20), value_column VARCHAR(20), delim CHAR(1))
  BEGIN
    DECLARE id INT DEFAULT 0;
    DECLARE value VARCHAR(255);
    DECLARE occurrences INT DEFAULT 0;
    DECLARE i INT DEFAULT 0;
    DECLARE splitted_value VARCHAR(255);
    DECLARE done INT DEFAULT 0;
    DECLARE cur CURSOR FOR SELECT tmp_table1.id, tmp_table1.value FROM 
        tmp_table1 WHERE tmp_table1.value IS NOT NULL AND tmp_table1.value != '';
    DECLARE CONTINUE HANDLER FOR NOT FOUND SET done = 1;

    SET @expr = CONCAT('CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp_table1 (id INT NOT NULL, value VARCHAR(255)) ENGINE=Memory SELECT ',
        id_column,' id, ', value_column,' value FROM ',tablename);
    PREPARE stmt FROM @expr;
    EXECUTE stmt;
    DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;

    DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS tmp_table2;
    CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE tmp_table2 (id INT NOT NULL, value VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL) ENGINE=Memory;

    OPEN cur;
      read_loop: LOOP
        FETCH cur INTO id, value;
        IF done THEN
          LEAVE read_loop;
        END IF;

        SET occurrences = (SELECT CHAR_LENGTH(value) -
                           CHAR_LENGTH(REPLACE(value, delim, '')) + 1);
        SET i=1;
        WHILE i <= occurrences DO
          SET splitted_value = (SELECT TRIM(SUBSTRING_INDEX(
              SUBSTRING_INDEX(value, delim, i), delim, -1)));
          INSERT INTO tmp_table2 VALUES (id, splitted_value);
          SET i = i + 1;
        END WHILE;
      END LOOP;

      SELECT * FROM tmp_table2;
    CLOSE cur;
    DROP TEMPORARY TABLE tmp_table1;
  END; $$

delimiter ;

Usage example (normalization):

CALL split_value_into_multiple_rows('my_contacts', 'contact_id', 'interests', ',');

CREATE TABLE interests (
  interest_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  interest VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL
) SELECT DISTINCT value interest FROM tmp_table2;

CREATE TABLE contact_interest (
  contact_id INT NOT NULL,
  interest_id INT NOT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT fk_contact_interest_my_contacts_contact_id FOREIGN KEY (contact_id) REFERENCES my_contacts (contact_id),
  CONSTRAINT fk_contact_interest_interests_interest_id FOREIGN KEY (interest_id) REFERENCES interests (interest_id)
) SELECT my_contacts.contact_id, interests.interest_id
    FROM my_contacts, tmp_table2, interests
    WHERE my_contacts.contact_id = tmp_table2.id AND interests.interest = tmp_table2.value;

Here is my attempt: The first select presents the csv field to the split. Using recursive CTE, we can create a list of numbers that are limited to the number of terms in the csv field. The number of terms is just the difference in the length of the csv field and itself with all the delimiters removed. Then joining with this numbers, substring_index extracts that term.

with recursive
    T as ( select 'a,b,c,d,e,f' as items),
    N as ( select 1 as n union select n + 1 from N, T
        where n <= length(items) - length(replace(items, ',', '')))
    select distinct substring_index(substring_index(items, ',', n), ',', -1)
group_name from N, T

Best Practice. Result:

SELECT
SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX('ab,bc,cd',',',help_id+1),',',-1) AS oid
FROM
(
SELECT @xi:=@xi+1 as help_id from 
(SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5) xc1,
(SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5) xc2,
(SELECT @xi:=-1) xc0
) a
WHERE 
help_id < LENGTH('ab,bc,cd')-LENGTH(REPLACE('ab,bc,cd',',',''))+1

First, create a numbers table:

SELECT @xi:=@xi+1 as help_id from 
(SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5) xc1,
(SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2 UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5) xc2,
(SELECT @xi:=-1) xc0;
| help_id  |
| --- |
| 0   |
| 1   |
| 2   |
| 3   |
| ...   |
| 24   |

Second, just split the str:

SELECT SUBSTRING_INDEX(SUBSTRING_INDEX('ab,bc,cd',',',help_id+1),',',-1) AS oid
FROM
numbers_table
WHERE
help_id < LENGTH('ab,bc,cd')-LENGTH(REPLACE('ab,bc,cd',',',''))+1
| oid  |
| --- |
| ab   |
| bc   |
| cd   |

I have take the reference from here with changed column name.

DELIMITER $$

CREATE FUNCTION strSplit(x VARCHAR(65000), delim VARCHAR(12), pos INTEGER) 
RETURNS VARCHAR(65000)
BEGIN
  DECLARE output VARCHAR(65000);
  SET output = REPLACE(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX(x, delim, pos)
                 , LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX(x, delim, pos - 1)) + 1)
                 , delim
                 , '');
  IF output = '' THEN SET output = null; END IF;
  RETURN output;
END $$


CREATE PROCEDURE BadTableToGoodTable()
BEGIN
  DECLARE i INTEGER;

  SET i = 1;
  REPEAT
    INSERT INTO GoodTable (id, name)
      SELECT id, strSplit(name, ',', i) FROM BadTable
      WHERE strSplit(name, ',', i) IS NOT NULL;
    SET i = i + 1;
    UNTIL ROW_COUNT() = 0
  END REPEAT;
END $$

DELIMITER ;

The original question was for MySQL and SQL in general. The example below is for the new versions of MySQL. Unfortunately, a generic query that would work on any SQL server is not possible. Some servers do no support CTE, others do not have substring_index, yet others have built-in functions for splitting a string into multiple rows.

--- the answer follows ---

Recursive queries are convenient when the server does not provide built-in functionality. They can also be the bottleneck.

The following query was written and tested on MySQL version 8.0.16. It will not work on version 5.7-. The old versions do not support Common Table Expression (CTE) and thus recursive queries.

with recursive
  input as (
        select 1 as id, 'a,b,c' as names
      union
        select 2, 'b'
    ),
  recurs as (
        select id, 1 as pos, names as remain, substring_index( names, ',', 1 ) as name
          from input
      union all
        select id, pos + 1, substring( remain, char_length( name ) + 2 ),
            substring_index( substring( remain, char_length( name ) + 2 ), ',', 1 )
          from recurs
          where char_length( remain ) > char_length( name )
    )
select id, name
  from recurs
  order by id, pos;

Examples related to mysql

Implement specialization in ER diagram How to post query parameters with Axios? PHP with MySQL 8.0+ error: The server requested authentication method unknown to the client Loading class `com.mysql.jdbc.Driver'. This is deprecated. The new driver class is `com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver' phpMyAdmin - Error > Incorrect format parameter? Authentication plugin 'caching_sha2_password' is not supported How to resolve Unable to load authentication plugin 'caching_sha2_password' issue Connection Java-MySql : Public Key Retrieval is not allowed How to grant all privileges to root user in MySQL 8.0 MySQL 8.0 - Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client

Examples related to sql

Passing multiple values for same variable in stored procedure SQL permissions for roles Generic XSLT Search and Replace template Access And/Or exclusions Pyspark: Filter dataframe based on multiple conditions Subtracting 1 day from a timestamp date PYODBC--Data source name not found and no default driver specified select rows in sql with latest date for each ID repeated multiple times ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN failed because one or more objects access this column Create Local SQL Server database

Examples related to delimiter

How do I hide the PHP explode delimiter from submitted form results? How do I use a delimiter with Scanner.useDelimiter in Java? Split function in oracle to comma separated values with automatic sequence Split String by delimiter position using oracle SQL SQL split values to multiple rows How to use delimiter for csv in python Hive load CSV with commas in quoted fields How to escape indicator characters (i.e. : or - ) in YAML Delimiters in MySQL Split comma separated column data into additional columns

Examples related to delimiter-separated-values

How to read file with space separated values in pandas SQL split values to multiple rows