Using a CTE in IF EXISTS Query

Question

Is it possible to do something similar to the following in SQL Server 2012?

IF EXISTS (
    WITH DATA AS (
        SELECT *, 
        ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY column ORDER BY Column) AS rn
        FROM table )
    SELECT *
    FROM DATA
    WHERE rn = 2 )
BEGIN
...
END

I tried using this syntax and received an error. If this is not possible, would using a temp table be the best way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

A CTE can't be used as a subquery. One workaround would be:

IF EXISTS 
(
  SELECT 1 FROM 
  (
    SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY column ORDER BY Column) AS rn
    FROM table
  ) AS DATA 
  WHERE rn = 2
)
BEGIN
  ...
END

Another would be:

IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM dbo.table GROUP BY column HAVING COUNT(*) > 1)
BEGIN
  ...
END

Even if your proposed syntax were valid, the EXISTS wouldn't short circuit in that case anyway, I would think (and I suspect that is why you'd want to use it), since the window function must materialize over the full set before rn could be filtered.

Answer 2

Another option is to use a variable:

DECLARE @HasRows bit = 0;

WITH foo as 
(
    ...
)
SELECT TOP(1) @HasRows = 1
FROM foo;

IF @HasRows
BEGIN
    PRINT 'True';
END

Answer 3

I Think you can use code like this:

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#data1') IS NOT NULL
            BEGIN 
                DROP TABLE #data1;
            END;

           CREATE TABLE #data1 (
id INT
)

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#data2') IS NOT NULL
                BEGIN 
                    DROP TABLE #data2;
                END;

CREATE TABLE #data2 (
id INT
)

INSERT INTO #data1
VALUES (1), (2), (3), (4)

INSERT INTO #data2
VALUES (4), (5)

DECLARE @result INT = 0;


;WITH result_set AS (
SELECT id FROM #data1
  UNION 
SELECT id FROM #data2
)
SELECT @result = 1 FROM result_set WHERE id = 5 --6

IF (@result = 1)
BEGIN 
SELECT 'YAHOO'
END 

Condition result can be stored as a variable.