In some cases we need to update a column in a table according to a join on another table. Making all in a single statement on Microsoft SQL Server is not easy, let's see how we can work it out.

Suppose we have a table of TERRITORIES and have to fill the column REGION DESCRIPTION according to the value retrieved from the second table REGIONS in join on the RegionID field

Territories table "TERRITORIES"

Region table "REGIONS"

the query toperform the update in the join is the following:

UPDATE TERRITORIES
SET REGIONDESCRIPTION= B.REGIONDESCRIPTION
FROM TERRITORIES , REGIONS B
WHERE TERRITORIES .REGIONID= B.REGIONID

and here it is the result:

ingenious, isn't it?