December 2007 - Tangra Inc.

Auxiliary tables (also referred as utility or helper tables) are a great tool for many needs in SQL. The good part is they are portable between systems, easy to create and normally do not take much storage. There are many benefits: faster SQL, simplified problem solutions, provide flexibility and options that are not easy to replicate with pure SQL code, and in many cases will help to avoid procedural coding and offer a set based way.

Here are samples for creating the two most common auxiliary tables: table with numbers and calendar table, as well as a couple brief examples of utilizing them.

-- Create table structure
CREATE TABLE Numbers (
 nbr INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_numbers_nbr
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_numbers_nbr
   CHECK (nbr > 0)
   CONSTRAINT pk_numbers
   PRIMARY KEY);
 
-- Populate via cross joining CTEs
-- Very fast, can be implemented as UDF
WITH 
Num1 (n) AS (SELECT 1 UNION ALL SELECT 1),
Num2 (n) AS (SELECT 1 FROM Num1 AS X, Num1 AS Y),
Num3 (n) AS (SELECT 1 FROM Num2 AS X, Num2 AS Y),
Num4 (n) AS (SELECT 1 FROM Num3 AS X, Num3 AS Y),
Num5 (n) AS (SELECT 1 FROM Num4 AS X, Num4 AS Y),
Num6 (n) AS (SELECT 1 FROM Num5 AS X, Num5 AS Y),
Nums (n) AS
(SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY n)
 FROM Num6)
INSERT INTO Numbers (nbr)
SELECT n FROM Nums
WHERE n <= 1000000;
 
-- Populate via generating digits and multiplication
-- for tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.
WITH Digits (n) AS
( SELECT 0 UNION SELECT 1 UNION SELECT 2
  UNION SELECT 3 UNION SELECT 4 UNION SELECT 5
  UNION SELECT 6 UNION SELECT 7 UNION SELECT 8
  UNION SELECT 9),
Nums (n) AS
( SELECT VII.n * 1000000 +
         VI.n * 100000 +
         V.n * 10000 +
         IV.n * 1000 +
         III.n * 100 +
         II.n * 10 + 
         I.n
  FROM Digits AS I 
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS II
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS III
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS IV
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS V
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS VI
  CROSS JOIN Digits AS VII
)
INSERT INTO Numbers (nbr)
SELECT n FROM Nums
WHERE n BETWEEN 1 AND 1000000;
 
-- One example of using table with numbers
-- to parse a list string to table format
-- with index for each element
DECLARE @list VARCHAR(100);
DECLARE @delimiter CHAR(1);
 
SET @list = 'Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat,Sun';
SET @delimiter = ',';
 
-- Split the list based on delimiter
SELECT SUBSTRING(@list, nbr, 
                 CHARINDEX(@delimiter, 
                           @list + @delimiter, nbr) - nbr) AS list_value,
       nbr + 1 - LEN(REPLACE(LEFT(@list, nbr), @delimiter, '')) AS list_index
FROM Numbers
WHERE SUBSTRING(@delimiter + @list, nbr, 1) = @delimiter
  AND nbr < LEN(@list) + 1;
 
/*
 
-- Results
list_value list_index
---------- -----------
Mon        1
Tue        2
Wed        3
Thu        4
Fri        5
Sat        6
Sun        7
 
 
*/
 
-- Another example to clean non-numeric characters from string
-- The table with numbers is used to slice the string to characters
-- then non-numeric characters are eliminated and the string
-- is concatenated back using FOR XML PATH with blank element name
DECLARE @string VARCHAR(30);
 
SET @string = '01234ab23-97z@';
 
SELECT SUBSTRING(@string, nbr, 1) 
FROM Numbers
WHERE nbr <= LEN(@string)
  AND SUBSTRING(@string, nbr, 1) LIKE '[0-9]'
FOR XML PATH('');
 
/*
 
-- Result
012342397
 
*/
 
-- Calendar table structure
CREATE TABLE Calendar (
 cdate DATETIME NOT NULL 
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cdate 
   DEFAULT DATEADD(day, DATEDIFF(day, 0, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP), 0)
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cdate
   CHECK (cdate = DATEADD(day, DATEDIFF(day, 0, cdate), 0))
   CONSTRAINT pk_calendar 
   PRIMARY KEY,
 cweek INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cweek
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cweek
   CHECK (cweek BETWEEN 1 AND 53),
 cweekday INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cweekday
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cweekday
   CHECK (cweekday BETWEEN 1 AND 7),
 cyear INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cyear
   DEFAULT 1900
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cyear
   CHECK (cyear >= 1900),
 cquarter INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cquarter
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cquarter
   CHECK (cquarter BETWEEN 1 AND 4),
 cmonth INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cmonth
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cmonth
   CHECK (cmonth BETWEEN 1 AND 12),
 cday INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cday
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cday
   CHECK (cday BETWEEN 1 AND 31),
 cday_of_year INT NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cday_of_year
   DEFAULT 1
   CONSTRAINT ck_calendar_cday_of_year
   CHECK (cday_of_year BETWEEN 1 AND 366),
 cmonth_name VARCHAR(9) NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cmonth_name
   DEFAULT 'N/A',
 cday_name VARCHAR(9) NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_cday_name
   DEFAULT 'N/A',
 holiday VARCHAR(35) NOT NULL
   CONSTRAINT df_calendar_holiday
   DEFAULT 'N/A');
 
 
-- Calculate number of days for 10 years from '20080101'
SELECT DATEDIFF(day, '20080101', '20180101') AS days; 
 
/*
 
-- Result
3653
 
*/
 
-- Insert 3653 days, which is 10 years
-- Another use for table with numbers
INSERT INTO Calendar (cdate)
SELECT DATEADD(dd, N.nbr - 1, '20080101')
FROM Numbers AS N
WHERE N.nbr <= 3653;
 
-- Populate calendar columns
-- First day of the week is logically set to Monday
-- Can be enhanced to have column for 
-- ISO week as it differs from internal SQL Server 
-- week date part
UPDATE Calendar
SET cweek = DATEPART(wk, cdate - DATEPART(dw, cdate + @@DATEFIRST - 1) + 1), 
    cweekday = DATEPART(dw, cdate + @@DATEFIRST - 1), 
    cyear = DATEPART(yyyy, cdate),
    cquarter = DATEPART(qq, cdate),
    cmonth = DATEPART(mm, cdate),
    cday = DATEPART(day, cdate),
    cday_of_year = DATEPART(dy, cdate),
    cmonth_name = DATENAME(mm, cdate),
    cday_name = DATENAME(dw, cdate);
 
-- Add some fixed date official holidays
-- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_holidays_by_country
-- for full list by country
 
-- New Year's Day
UPDATE Calendar
SET holiday = 'New Year''s Day'
WHERE cday = 1
  AND cmonth = 1;
 
-- Christmas Eve
UPDATE Calendar
SET holiday = 'Christmas Eve'
WHERE cday = 24
  AND cmonth = 12;
 
-- Christmas Day
UPDATE Calendar
SET holiday = 'Christmas Day'
WHERE cday = 25
  AND cmonth = 12;
 
-- New Year's Eve
UPDATE Calendar
SET holiday = 'New Year''s Eve'
WHERE cday = 31
  AND cmonth = 12;
 
-- Get work days for year 2008
-- Note that not all official holidays are defined
-- and this is only counting non-weekend days
-- and existing holidays
SELECT COUNT(*) AS work_days
FROM Calendar
WHERE cyear = 2008
  AND cweekday NOT IN (6, 7) -- 6 = Saturday; 7 = Sunday
  AND holiday = 'N/A';
 
/*
 
-- Result
work_days
-----------
258
 
*/

To get ISO week calculation use the function example IsoWeek in SQL Server Books Online under CREATE FUNCTION:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186755.aspx

In SQL Server 2008 the DATEPART function has been enhanced and has date part parameter ISO_WEEK, which supports ISO 8601 week numbering:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174420(SQL.100).aspx

On SQL Server 2008 the calendar table can be modeled using the new DATE data type which will eliminate the need of constraints to handle the time portion:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb630352(SQL.100).aspx

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