Using Variable in "IN" clause in SQL Server

In SQL Server, if you pass a comma separated list as a variable in IN Clause in T-SQL, it would not give error but you will not even get expected result either.

I have seen most of the developers facing the problem while using variable in "IN" clause in SQL Server in early stage of their career. So, I decided to post an article on how to overcome this with example.

Let's first see the problem encountered while using variable in "IN" clause.

First create a table with some sample data

create table tbldata(   
    id int, name varchar(50)
)   
insert into tbldata
select 1, 'Sandeep' union all
select 2, 'Abhay' union all
select 3, 'Ritesh'

Now, let's execute the below queries with and without variable in "IN" clause.

select * from tbldata where name in ('Sandeep', 'Abhay')

OUTPUT

Here, we get the result as expected, now let's execute query with variable

declare @idList varchar(max)
set @idList = '''Sandeep'', ''Abhay'''
select * from tbldata where name in (@idList)

OUTPUT

See here when we execute the same query with variable, we did not get the expected output. Hence, it is concluded that variable does not work fine when used inside IN clause in Sql Server.

Now, lets see the work around to this problem. There are two solutions to handle the same

1. Dynamic query

declare @query nvarchar(max), @idList varchar(max)
set @idList = '''Sandeep'', ''Abhay'''
set @query = 'select * from tbldata where name in (' + @idList + ')'
exec sp_executesql @query

OUTPUT

2. Split function
First create split function using link:  Split Function in SQL Server
Once split function is created, then use the below solution

declare @idList varchar(max)
set @idList = 'Sandeep,Abhay'
select * from tbldata where name in (select val from dbo.split(@idList,','))

OUTPUT

Replacing IN with JOIN
Split is a tabular function which returns table of the list passed to it.
In the above example IN can be replaced with JOIN

declare @idList varchar(max)
set @idList = 'Sandeep,Abhay'
select  t.*
from    tbldata t
inner join dbo.split(@idList,',') s on t.name = s.val

OUTPUT