How to select data but without similar times? - sql

Question

I have a table with create_dt times and i need to get records but without the datas that have similar create_dt time (15 minutes).
So i need to get only one record instead od two records if the create_dt is in 15 minutes of the first one.
Format of the date and time is '(29.03.2019 00:00:00','DD.MM.YYYY HH24:MI:SS'). Thanks

Answer 1

It's a bit unclear what exactly you want, but one thing I can think of, is to round all values to the nearest "15 minute" and then only pick one row from those "15 minute" intervals:
with rounded as (
select create_dt,
date '0001-01-01' + (round((cast(create_dt as date) - date '0001-01-01') * 24 * 60 / 15) * 15 / 60 / 24) as rounded,
... other columns ....
from your_table
), numbered as (
select create_dt,
rounded,
row_number() over (partition by rounded order by create_dt) as rn
... other columns ....
from rounded
)
select *
from numbered
where rn = 1;
The expression date '0001-01-01' + (round((cast(create_dt as date) - date '0001-01-01') * 24 * 60 / 15) * 15 / 60 / 24) will return create_dt rounded up or down to the next "15 minutes" interval.
The row_number() then assigns unique numbers for each distinct 15 minutes interval and the final select then always picks the first row for that interval.
Online example: https://dbfiddle.uk/?rdbms=oracle_11.2&fiddle=e6c7ea651c26a6f07ccb961185652de7

Answer 2

I'm going to walk you through this conceptually. First of all, there's a difficulty in doing this that you might not have noticed.
Let's say you wanted one record from the same hour or day. But if there are two record created on the same day, you only want one in your results. Which one?
I mention this because to the designers of SQL, there is not a single answer that they can provide SQL to pick. Then cannot show data from both records without both records being in the tabular output.
This is a common problem, but when the designers of SQL provided a feature to handle it, it can only work if there is no ambiguity of how to have one row of result for two records. That solution is GROUP BY, but it only works for showing the fields other than the timestamp if they are the same for all the records which match the time period. You have to include all the fields in your select clause and if multiple records in your time period are the same, they will create multiple records in your output. So although there is a tool GROUP BY for this problem, you might not be able to use it.
So here is the solution you want. If multiple records are close together, then don't include the records after the first one. So you want a WHERE clause which will exclude a record if another record recently proceeds it. So the test for each record in the result will involve other records in the table. You need to join the table to itself.
Let's say we have a table named error_events. If we get multiples of the same value in the field error_type very close to the time of other similar events, we only want to see the first one. The SQL will look something like this:
SELECT A.*
FROM error_events A
INNER JOIN error_events B ON A.error_type = B.error_type
WHERE ???
You will have to figure out the details of the WHERE clause, and the functions for the timestamp will depend you when RDBMS product you are using. (mysql and postgres for instance may work differently.)
You want only the records where there is no record which is earlier by less then 15 minutes. You do want the original record. That record will match itself in the join, but it will be the only record in the time period between its timestamp and 15 minutes prior.
So an example WHERE clause would be
WHERE B.create_dt BETWEEN [15 minutes before A.create_dt] and A.create_dt
GROUP BY A.*
HAVING 1 = COUNT(B.pkey)
Like we said, you will have to find out how your database product subtracts time, and how 15 minutes is represented in that difference.