Sending multiple values to stored procedure and use it in IN operator

Question

I'm trying to create a form where user could change some data in the database and there are few things he needs to provide, this is how the procedure looks

ALTER procedure [dbo].[ChangePrice] 
( 
    @type int, 
    @quality nvarchar(1000), 
    @dim1_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim1_to decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim2_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim2_to decimal(10, 2),
    @od_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @od_to decimal(10, 2),
    @price decimal(10, 2), 
    @price_m decimal(10, 2)
) 
AS 
BEGIN
UPDATE list
SET 
price=ISNULL(@price, price),
price_m=ISNULL(@price_m, price_m)
WHERE
    type=@type
    AND dim1 BETWEEN @dim1_from AND @dim1_to
    AND (dim2 BETWEEN @dim2_from AND @dim2_to OR @dim2_from IS NULL)
    AND od BETWEEN @od_from AND @od_to  
    AND quality IN (@quality)
END

This works ok, most of this data are numbers and I send only one number per variable, but the problem is with the variable @quality . In a database that is a string and when I send only one it works fine, but I want to send a multiple number of quality, so I tried sending it like 'quality1, quality2, quality3' but it didn't work and I think I understand why.

On this thread I found something that looks that can help me but I can't make it work Using a variable to represent multiple values

This is what I made

ALTER procedure [dbo].[ChangePrice] 
( 
@type int, 
@quality nvarchar(1000), 
@dim1_from decimal(10, 2), 
@dim1_to decimal(10, 2), 
@dim2_from decimal(10, 2), 
@dim2_to decimal(10, 2),
@od_from decimal(10, 2), 
@od_to decimal(10, 2),
@price decimal(10, 2), 
@price_m decimal(10, 2)
) 
AS 
BEGIN


DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'
UPDATE lista_cevi
SET 
price=ISNULL('+@price+', price),
price_m=ISNULL('+@price_m+', price_m)
WHERE
    type='+@type+'
    AND dim1 BETWEEN '+@dim1_from+' AND '+@dim1_to+'
    AND (dim2 BETWEEN '+@dim2_from+' AND '+@dim2_to+' OR '+@dim2_from+' IS NULL)
    AND od BETWEEN '+@od_from+' AND '+@od_to+'
    AND quality IN (''' +REPLACE(@quality, ',',''',''')+''')';
exec sp_executesql @sql
END

I'm using Postman to test it and most of the time I'm getting this error

Arithmetic overflow error converting varchar to data type numeric.

I guess it has to do with the number variables, but I don't know how to fix it. When I delete most of it and leave only WHERE quality IN (@quality) it looks like it works, so the problem now is with other variables. I tried using CAST() to make them nvarchar but that also gave me some other kind of error.

Does anyone know how to fix it or is there some other way I can send multiple data? I am using React and NodeJs and the database is SQL Server.

The last solution I can think of is to map through all the qualities that are selected and call the procedure for every quality separately, not sure if that is the best idea?

Answer 1

Here is another method. No dynamic SQL.

It is using XQuery to tokenize a parameter, and convert it into a relational dataset.

It will work starting from SQL Server 2012 onwards.

SQL

-- DDL and sample data population, start
DECLARE @tbl TABLE (ID INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY, quality NVARCHAR(10), City VARCHAR(50));
INSERT INTO @tbl (quality , City) VALUES
('10', 'Miami'),
('45', 'Orlando'),
('50', 'Dallas'),
('70', 'Houston');
-- DDL and sample data population, end

DECLARE @quality NVARCHAR(1000) = '22,45,50,105,'   -- here is your parameter
   , @separator CHAR(1) = ',';

DECLARE @parameter XML = TRY_CAST('<root><r><![CDATA[' + 
      REPLACE(@quality, @separator, ']]></r><r><![CDATA[') + 
      ']]></r></root>' AS XML);

;WITH rs AS
(
   SELECT c.value('.', 'NVARCHAR(10)') AS quality
   FROM @parameter.nodes('/root/r/text()') AS t(c)
)
SELECT t.* 
FROM @tbl AS t INNER JOIN 
   rs ON t.quality = rs.quality;

Output

+----+---------+---------+
| ID | quality |  City   |
+----+---------+---------+
|  2 |      45 | Orlando |
|  3 |      50 | Dallas  |
+----+---------+---------+

Answer 2

If @quality is a CSV string then you could simply use string_split .
(if your Sql Server version supports it)

... 
AND quality IN (select value from STRING_SPLIT(@quality,','))
... 

Answer 3

Taking into account your front-end, it would be more natural and reliable to use a json array to pass these values to the procedure, and then parse @quality parameter in sql using OPENJSON operator.

For example, the value of your @quality parameter may look like this:

'["quality1","quality2","quality3"]'

Then the procedure could take the following form:

ALTER procedure [dbo].[ChangePrice] 
( 
    @type int, 
    @quality nvarchar(max), 
    @dim1_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim1_to decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim2_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @dim2_to decimal(10, 2),
    @od_from decimal(10, 2), 
    @od_to decimal(10, 2),
    @price decimal(10, 2), 
    @price_m decimal(10, 2)
) 
AS 
BEGIN
UPDATE list
SET 
price=ISNULL(@price, price),
price_m=ISNULL(@price_m, price_m)
FROM list INNER JOIN OPENJSON(@quality) AS qualities ON list.quality = qualities.value
WHERE
    type=@type
    AND dim1 BETWEEN @dim1_from AND @dim1_to
    AND (dim2 BETWEEN @dim2_from AND @dim2_to OR @dim2_from IS NULL)
    AND od BETWEEN @od_from AND @od_to
END