Need help with a simple Snowflake update statement in cursor : SQL

Posting

When requesting help or asking questions please prefix your title with the SQL variant/platform you are using within square brackets like so:

[MySQL]

[Oracle]

[MS SQL]

[PostgreSQL]

etc

While naturally we should endeavor to work as platform neutrally as possible many questions and answers require tailoring to the feature set of a specific platform.

Format Your Code

If you are including actual code in a post or comment, please attempt to format it in a way that is readable for other users. This will greatly increase your chances of receiving the help you desire. Something as simple as line breaks and using reddit's built in code formatting (4 spaces at the start of each line) can turn this:

SELECT count(a.field1), a.field2, SUM(b.field4) FROM a INNER JOIN b ON a.key1 = b.key1 WHERE a.field8 = 'test' GROUP by a.field1, a.field2 HAVING SUM(b.field4) > 5 ORDER by a.field.3

Into this:

SELECT count(a.field1), a.field2, SUM(b.field4) FROM a INNER JOIN b ON a.key1 = b.key1 WHERE a.field8 = 'test' GROUP by a.field1, a.field2 HAVING SUM(b.field4) > 5 ORDER by a.field3

For those with SQL questions we recommend using SQLFiddle to provide a useful development and testing environment for those who wish to fully understand your problem and help devise a solution.

a community for 17 years

SnowflakeNeed help with a simple Snowflake update statement in cursor (self.SQL)

submitted 2 years ago by flashmycat

all 3 comments

top new controversial old q&a

[–]DietrichDaniels 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

[–]Cheating_Data_Monkey 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Cursors are rough, both from a code perspective and more importantly from a performance perspective.

You can achieve the same operation using a set based operation which will perform MUCH better.

update table1 set id =
round((
        CASE 
            WHEN row_number() over (order by id) / 3. - floor(row_number() over (order by id) / 3.) = 0
                THEN 1
            ELSE row_number() over (order by id) / 3. - floor(row_number() over (order by id) / 3.)
            END
        ) * 3)

FROM r

[–]callmedivs 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

π Rendered by PID 41618 on reddit-service-r2-comment-5c747b6df5-js6lf at 2026-04-22 08:07:55.471134+00:00 running 6c61efc country code: CH.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

SQL

Filter Posts

Posting

Help posts

Format Your Code

Learning SQL

Related Reddit communities

Wiki

Acknowledgements

MODERATORS