Hello David,

This is a simplified version of my own attempt:

SELECT *
FROM ("oxford", "webster")
WHERE NOT ( columnName = ANY (SELECT name FROM dictionaries))

The idea is that "oxford" and "webster" come from the Java program end up in the column called columnName.

I think your answer is quite sufficient though and that it I should use option 1 since there don't seem to be any other options which are any better.

Thanks,
Daron.

On 4/07/2011 1:45 AM, David Johnston wrote:

On Jul 3, 2011, at 11:13, Daron Ryan <daron.ryan@gmail.com> wrote:

I have strings from
java and need to check which ones are not present in the db. Can
I use a select statement to do this by making it search my
strings as though they are a table?

There are multiple ways to accomplish your goal, which each have merits and issues.

1. Java for loop and look for each string one at a time

2. Convert your strings into a Postgres array and query all of them at once

3. Insert your strings into a table and execute a query to check them all at once

If you want more help than this you should provide more specific details about your situation. Your question seems odd at first reading, especially the part where you want to find out which strings are NOT present.

David J