How to select table with a concatenated column? - sql

Question

I have the following data:
select * from art_skills_table;
+----+------+---------------------------+
| ID | Name | skills |
+----+------+---------------------------|
| 1 | Anna | ["painting","photography"]|
| 2 | Bob | ["drawing","sculpting"] |
| 3 | Cat | ["pastel"] |
+----+------+---------------------------+
select * from computer_table;
+------+------+-------------------------+
| ID | Name | skills |
+------+------+-------------------------+
| 1 | Anna | ["word","typing"] |
| 2 | Cat | ["code","editing"] |
| 3 | Bob | ["excel","code"] |
+------+------+-------------------------+
I would like to write an SQL statement which results in the following table.
+------+------+-----------------------------------------------+
| ID | Name | skills |
+------+------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 1 | Anna | ["painting","photography","word","typing"] |
| 2 | Bob | ["drawing","sculpting","excel","code"] |
| 3 | Cat | ["pastel","code","editing"] |
+------+------+-----------------------------------------------+
I've tried something like SELECT * from art_skills_table LEFT JOIN computer_table ON name. However it doesn't give what I need. I've read about array_cat but I'm having a bit of trouble implementing it.

Answer 1

if the skills column from both tables are arrays, then you should be able to get away with this:
SELECT a.ID, a.name, array_cat(a.skills, c.skills)
FROM art_skills_table a LEFT JOIN computer_table c
ON c.id = a.id
That said, While you used LEFT join in your sample, I think either an INNER or FULL (OUTER) join might serve you better.

Answer 2

First, i wondered why the data are stored in such a model.
Was of the opinion that NoSQL databases lack ability for joins and ...
... a semantic triple would be in the form of subject–predicate–object.
... a Key-value (KV) stores use associative arrays.
... a relational database would be normalized.
A few information about the use case would have helped.
Nevertheless, you can select the data with CONCAT and REPLACE for the desired form.
SELECT art_skills_table.ID, computer_table.name,
CONCAT(
REPLACE(art_skills_table.skills, '}',','),
REPLACE(computer_table.skills, '{','')
)
FROM art_skills_table JOIN computer_table ON art_skills_table.ID = computer_table.ID
The query returns the following result:
+----+------+--------------------------------------------+
| ID | Name | Skills |
+----+------+--------------------------------------------+
| 1 | Anna | {"painting","photography","word","typing"} |
| 2 | Cat | {"drawing","sculpting","code","editing"} |
| 3 | Bob | {"pastel","excel","code"} |
+----+------+--------------------------------------------+
I've used the ID for the JOIN, even though Bob has different values.
The JOIN should probably be done over the name.
JOIN computer_table ON art_skills_table.Name = computer_table.Name
BTW, you need to tell us what SQL engine you're running on.