Is there a better option than Union All for multiple selects from the same row?

Question

Example Schema:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Base](
[ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[Option1ID] [int] NULL,
[Option2ID] [int] NULL,
[Option3ID] [int] NULL,
[Option1Name] [varchar] NULL,
[Option2Name] [varchar] NULL,
[Option3Name] [varchar] NULL,
[Option1LName] [varchar] NULL,
[Option2LName] [varchar] NULL,
[Option3LName] [varchar] NULL,)

Is there a way to get results that show up like:

ID | OptionID | OptionName | OptionLName

I have tried to achieve this using UNION ALL but this means going over the same row 3 times in my example, in my real problem I have to do it 10 times. I cannot normalize the table due to legacy code. Is there a way to only go over the Base row once?

Answer 1

You can use CROSS APPLY ... VALUES to UNPIVOT multiple columns

SELECT ID,
       OptionID,
       OptionName,
       OptionLName
FROM   [dbo].[Base]
       CROSS APPLY (VALUES([Option1ID], [Option1Name], [Option1LName]),
                          ([Option2ID], [Option2Name], [Option2LName]),
                          ([Option3ID], [Option3Name], [Option3LName])) 
                     V( OptionID, OptionName, OptionLName) 

The execution plan for this has one scan of Base. The plan is in fact the same as for the 2005 compatible rewrite that uses UNION ALL

SELECT ID,
       OptionID,
       OptionName,
       OptionLName
FROM   [dbo].[Base]
       CROSS APPLY (SELECT [Option1ID], [Option1Name], [Option1LName] UNION ALL
                    SELECT [Option2ID], [Option2Name], [Option2LName] UNION ALL
                    SELECT [Option3ID], [Option3Name], [Option3LName]) 
                     V( OptionID, OptionName, OptionLName)  

But I presume the UNION ALL you were trying to avoid was the multiple scans of

SELECT ID,
       [Option1ID],
       [Option1Name],
       [Option1LName]
FROM   [dbo].[Base]
UNION ALL
SELECT ID,
       [Option2ID],
       [Option2Name],
       [Option2LName]
FROM   [dbo].[Base]
UNION ALL
SELECT ID,
       [Option3ID],
       [Option3Name],
       [Option3LName]
FROM   [dbo].[Base]