Populate DB Field From List In “storage� DB

I am fairly new to SQL programming and would like to see if you can provide me with some direction on a small project I would like to accomplish. I have experience working with databases (mainly in with different versions of FoxPro) and reporting with Crystal reports, etc. but not much with SQL.

The project that I would like to work on has 2 SQL DBs and entails looking in a database for empty CLASSCODE fields, populate these fields from a “storage� database that contains un-used CLASSCODE codes and delete the assigned codes from the storage DB or mark them as used possibly the book code.

The main DB called books has the following relevant fields, bookid, bookname, CLASSCODE (besides a number of other fields which are irrelevant to what I need to do). The “storage DB called classcode has 3 fields, CLASSCODE, Used (single character intended to contain either a Y or NULL) and date assigned. The original idea was to put a Y in the used field and insert the date the code was assigned to a book, but this is not entirely necessary, we have 90k unused codes and it really does not matter if they are simply deleted from the DB.

My idea is to create a script to accomplish this that I can run periodically when new books have been added to the DB. I can setup the update routine (something like the list below) but what I am stuck with is trying to do the following:

Pick the first record (classcode) from the classcode DB
Go to the books DB and update it with this classcode
Go back to the classcode DB and mark the used record with a Y in the Used field
Loop though the books DB and perform the same operation until no more records exist with an empty classcode field.

I will greatly appreciate your feedback you can provide.

Mike.

UPDATE [dbo].[Books]
SET dbo.Books.Classcode = [dbo].[classcode].[classcode]
From dbo.classcode
On [dbo].[Books].[classcode]= [NULL]

Populate DB field from list in “storage� DB


Mike Campos - CA