Check if row contains another row

Question

In T-SQL, how would you check if a row contains no rows?

I have nvarchar , which may be "Oranges Eggs."

I would like to do an update where, for example, columm does not contain "Apples."

How can I do that?

Answer 1

 WHERE NOT (someColumn LIKE '%Apples%') 

Answer 2

Or, alternatively, you can use this:

 WHERE CHARINDEX(N'Apples', someColumn) = 0 

Not sure which one works best - you should check it out !:-)

Mark

UPDATE: performance seems to be pretty much in line with another solution (WHERE someColumn NOT LIKE '% Apples%') - so it's really just a matter of your personal preference.

Answer 3

Use this as a WHERE clause.

 WHERE CHARINDEX('Apples', column) = 0 

Answer 4

Responses to which you suggested static text for comparison. If you want to compare with another column (for example, you join two tables and want to find those where a column from one table is part of a column from another table), you can do this

 WHERE NOT (someColumn LIKE '%' || someOtherColumn || '%')