COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT agaisnt an IN () clause

Question

I have a problem returning records in a sproc. No error is thrown but I think data coming from one server environment is not mixing well in another.

set @shipedon =  YEAR(@shipdate) * 10000 + MONTH(@shipdate) * 100 + DAY(@shipdate)

This works:

SELECT   [ITEM_KEY],
         max([REVISION]) Rev
FROM     SERVER2.[BOMSystem].[dbo].[ITEM]
WHERE    ITEM_KEY collate DATABASE_DEFAULT in
         ('391000180', '391000189', '391000191', '391000201',
          '391000214', '391000215', '391000216', '391000226')
AND      DATE_EFF_FROM <= @shipedon 
GROUP BY ITEM_KEY

shows 8 rows like:

391000180   0001
391000189   0001
391000191   0001

This fails:

SELECT   [ITEM_KEY],
         max([REVISION]) Rev
INTO     #rev
FROM     SERVER2.[BOMSystem].[dbo].[ITEM] 
WHERE    ITEM_KEY collate DATABASE_DEFAULT in (@items)                                                       
AND      DATE_EFF_FROM  <= @shipedon
GROUP BY ITEM_KEY

SELECT * from #rev shows no results.

SELECT @items = SUBSTRING(
(SELECT distinct ',' +''''+ ltrim(rtrim(ItemNumber )) +'''' 
collate DATABASE_DEFAULT 
FROM #ShipTemp   
FOR XML PATH('')),2,20000) 

Answer 1

There is no need to concatenate all of them into a comma delimited string.

IN accepts a sub query that returns a single column of items to be tested. Just use

SELECT [ITEM_KEY],
       max([REVISION]) Rev
INTO   #rev
FROM   SERVER2.[BOMSystem].[dbo].[ITEM]
WHERE  ITEM_KEY COLLATE DATABASE_DEFAULT IN (SELECT LTRIM(ItemNumber )
                                             FROM   #ShipTemp)
       AND DATE_EFF_FROM <= @shipedon
GROUP  BY ITEM_KEY 

Also no need to RTRIM as trailing spaces aren't significant in a comparison and if ItemNumber is numeric you should use a numeric datatype, not a string.

Answer 2

It doesn't make sense to use @items variable in IN clause. It treats this variable as string. So unless it's just one value, it will not work as you think.

The way to fix it is to put all the IDs you need into another temp table and then join your query with this temp table.

SELECT ltrim(rtrim(ItemNumber )) AS ID INTO #Items FROM #ShipTemp;

SELECT   [ITEM_KEY],
         max([REVISION]) Rev
INTO     #rev
FROM     SERVER2.[BOMSystem].[dbo].[ITEM] i
         INNER JOIN #Items is ON (i.ITEM_KEY collate DATABASE_DEFAULT = is.ID)
WHERE    DATE_EFF_FROM  <= @shipedon
GROUP BY ITEM_KEY