Question

INSERTS IN STORED PROCEDURE

Asked by: k_murli_krishna

1) We have a application where from front end, 30 values are input then together with current date & timestamp, 30 rows should be inserted in a table.

2) This can be 30, 60, 200 etc. i.e. any number of inputs & hence any number of records to be inserted in table.

3) char & varchar datatypes is max 255 characters. text is big & okay for us but cannot be passed as a stored procedure parameter.

4) We are trying to send a concatenated string including values of all these 30 etc. inputs from frontend. This we will tokenize in stored proc & carry out the inserts. Is this possible?

4) Are there any array type datatypes in Sybase.  Is there any other way of doing this in a stored procedure.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2004-11-23 at 08:35:43ID21217556
Tags

stored

,

procedure

,

sybase

,

inserts

Topic

Sybase Database

Participating Experts
5
Points
100
Comments
5

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Token System
    Hi All, I am working on a system which needs a secure way of taking value, assigning a use once token to it, and storing the token/value in the table, and then retrieving the value given the token, and then deleting the token/value from the table. I want to only give pro...
  2. MS SQL backend, MS Access frontend, Inserting and up…
    Hi, I'm developing a client/server application which has MS SQL Backend and MS Access frontend. I created a form based on a stored procedure which is in turn based on a JOIN query. When I insert new record I got this error: "Key value for this row was changed or ...
  3. Search and Replace: Unique procedure needed for tokens
    VB.NET 2003 ACCESS 2003 What I have: Access Database C:\TestSamples\MyData.mdb 2 Tables: Table 1 tblData 4 Fields fldDId - Text 20 fldMfgname - Text 150 fldMfrnum - text 150 fldDescription - text 255 example: 0001 |LAWSON|12324R5|SPEEDBIT DRILLBIT 1.A 0...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: gagaliyaPosted on 2004-11-23 at 10:24:51ID: 12657777

If i understand what you are saying correctly, you just want to do multiple inserts from user-defined values. Why are you trying to force a single stored proc to do this. You should use a loop within your application language to do the inserts one at a time. This is the most clean implementation

Using string concatenation to pass the values into a stored proc as a single input, then parse it out within the sp, and loop through them for insertion is a complete nightmare. Not to mention there is a size limitation on input parameters for the sp.  This should be done on the application level, not database.

The only array datatype structure i am aware of is cursor which is not applicable here. The only way i know that allows you to do mass inserts in sybase is:  insert into TableOne select Cols.. from TableTwo.  This is very useful but only if the data already exist in db table somewhere. If it is passed to you from frontend gui/forms, there is no way around it. Just loop through multiple insert statements.


 

by: Jan_FranekPosted on 2004-11-23 at 10:31:08ID: 12657839

Ad 3) - in newer versions of ASE (I think 12.5 or later) char & varchar datatypes can have up to 16384 characters

Ad 4) - yes it is possible - using charindex and substring functions it can be done quite easily, but I'm not sure how effective is string handling in T-SQL (compared to C)

Ad 5) - no, there's no array datatype in Sybase ASE

 

by: bretPosted on 2004-11-23 at 10:33:33ID: 12657862

On 12.5.x, the maximum size of a char/varchar is increased ~16k, so you could pass quite a few values (but not an unlimited number) all concatenated together in one string.

But I have to agree, I don't think handling the values that way is a good idea, it seems much cleaner to just have the application do one insert for each value submitted.

 

by: Joe_WoodhousePosted on 2004-11-23 at 14:28:17ID: 12660201

You've already been given good advice, and I agree with what the others have said. There's little business or technical reason to want to handle multiple inserts like this in a single procedure call.

You could place all the rows to be inserted in a file, or something that looks like a file (a UNIX named pipe, for example), and call bcp to do a bulk insert to the table in a single operation. This is faster than row by row inserts - "slow" bcp will be the same speed as INSERT ... SELECT, and "fast" bcp is roughly equivalent to SELECT INTO in performance. But you'll lose time in exporting the rows from your app to a file, and cleaning up the file afterwards. This has to be done outside of ASE, which means you lose ASE transaction management and error handling.

It *is* possible to to a "bulk array insert" directly from a C array structure in your app into a Sybase table, using the Bulk Library functions in Open Client. This is basically equivalent to doing a bcp from a file into a table. This is complicated and unless you're talking hundreds of thousands of rows that has to be loaded as quickly as possible (this approach *will* outperform row by row inserts in the same way that fast bcp does), it probably isn't worth the coding and testing effort.

Nah, stick with row by row inserts from your app. If a single-threaded approach isn't fast enough, look into multiple connections each doing a subset of the inserts. This will introduce locking and concurrency problems which you'd need to fix with partitioning the table and/or row-level locking - both of which introduce other issues.

 

by: ChrisKingPosted on 2004-11-24 at 05:12:42ID: 12664860

k_murli_krishna
the trick here is not to have one proc call that does 30 inserts (because as every has already said: that is just too hard and silly), but to actually batch 30 EXEC procedure statements into one string and the pass that string to sybase as if it was a single statement.

this is much more efficient than 30 seperate calls on sybase (especially over a WAN)

NOTE: you may have to increase your buffer sizes for larger strings to be passed.

if this is not a matter of improving performance and it is just about batching commands that belong together, then you should be looking at "transaction control" techniques.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...