About Merge Statement - SQL Server Forums

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About Merge Statement

Author

Topic

jooorj
Posting Yak Master

126 Posts

Posted - 2011-04-25 : 18:43:01

Hello,
I want to know what is the different between
Match By Target and match by Source
in MERGE
AND
Not Match by Target and Not Match by Source

lastly : when can I use them exactly?

also how can I insert into source table instead of target, and how can I delete from source table instead of target....!!
Thank you :)

nigelrivett
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

3385 Posts

Posted - 2011-04-25 : 18:56:47

target is the merge table, source is the using table.
So not matched by target is when there is a row in the using table that is not in the merge table - and you usually want to execute an insert.
Mathed by target and source - this is just matched - there is a row in the source and target and you usually check to see if there is a difference in the non-key columns and do an update.

You can't affect the using table (which doesn't even have to be a table - it's often a cte. You can output to a table variable and use that in a following statement though.

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