SQL select the first match in an ordered list - sql

Using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio version 14.0.17213.0
I have a list of events that go in order. I want to select the highest precedent acct_no, complete_date and event.
My problem is if I use
select
account_number, event, max(complete_date) as mx_comp
from
mytable
where
event in ('event1','event2'....)
then I get all my acct_numbers, all the events in the list and the max complete date for that event. But I want acct_no listed with the maximum completed date for any item in the list and the associated event.
Furthermore, its wholly possible that two events occurred on the same date, so I cannot do
select *
from mytable mt
join
(select acct_number, max(complete_date)
from mytable) t on mt.acct_number = t.account_number
and mt.complete_date = t.complete_date
because if two events occurred on the same day then I still get duplicate results.
I have tried to do a similar thing with
row_number() over (order by account_number) as RowNum
but it did not work, because I still get matches to all the events, not just my highest precedence event
it really boils down to needing to return the acct_number, event and complete date associated to the highest importance match from items in an ordered list.
I am sure it is easy - I just cannot seem to figure it out and despite all my google and stack searching I simply cannot figure it out
I have recently been thinking that it might be possible with something like coalesce(mylist) because I would be able to put my list in order but I cannot figure out how to use coalesce in a meaningful way for this problem.
The real solution would be to create a table with precedence numbers or have a most recent indicator but I dont have unlimited access to create any tables I want.
Any help or ideas on how to match to an ordered list would be appreciated

You seem to want:
select t.*
from (select t.*,
row_number() over (partition by account_number order by complete_date desc) as seqnum
from mytable t
where event in ('event1', 'event2', ....)
) t
where seqnum = 1;

Related

Query for records only where the Project Status has changed

I'm trying to write a query where I return only the records where the status of a project changes. Projects start off "In Progress," can "Pause," go back "In Progress," and continue until they are "Completed." The table is designed for the full history of modifications toward the project and details of the project cause a new record to be created. So, table structure will look like below, and the highlighted records are what I want to query for:
I've tried to use a combination of ROW_NUMBER() and RANK() with certain elements but I can't get seem to get it right. How do I query for the records where the status changes? This post and this post are similar but don't help.
Thanks to #klin for the LAG() recommendation.
WITH l as (
SELECT LAG(status, 1) OVER (PARTITION BY mod_id ORDER BY mod_date) lag, *
FROM projects_table
ORDER BY mod_id, mod_date
)
SELECT *
FROM l
WHERE lag IS DISTINCT FROM status
ORDER BY mod_date

How to select 1 row per id?

I'm working with a table that has multiple rows for each order id (e.g. variations in spelling for addresses and different last_updated dates), that in theory shouldn't be there (not my doing). I want to select just 1 row for each id and so far I figured I can do that using partitioning like so:
SELECT dp.order_id,
MAX(cr.updated_at) OVER(PARTITION BY dp.order_id) AS updated_at
but I have seen other queries which only use MAX and list every other column like so
SELECT dp.order_id,
MAX(dp.ship_address) as address,
MAX(cr.updated_at) as updated_at
etc...
this solution looks more neat but I can't get it to work (still returns multiple rows per single order_id). What am I doing wrong?
If you want one row per order_id, then window functions are not sufficient. They don't filter the data. You seem to want the most recent row. A typical method uses row_number():
select t.*
from (select t.*,
row_number() over (partition by order_id order by created_at desc) as seqnum
from t
) t
where seqnum = 1;
You can also use aggregation:
select order_id, max(ship_address), max(created_at)
from t
group by order_id;
However, the ship_address may not be from the most recent row and that is usually not desirable. You can tweak this using keep syntax:
select order_id,
max(ship_address) keep (dense_rank first order by created_at desc),
max(created_at)
from t
group by order_id;
However, this gets cumbersome for a lot of columns.
The 2nd "solution" doesn't care about values in other columns - it selects their MAX values. It means that you'd get ORDER_ID and - possibly - "mixed" values for other columns, i.e. those ADDRESS and UPDATED_AT might belong to different rows.
If that's OK with you, then go for it. Otherwise, you'll have to select one MAX row (using e.g. row_number analytic function), and fetch data that is related only to it (i.e. doesn't "mix" values from different rows).
Also, saying that you
can't get it to work (still returns multiple rows per single order_id)
is kind of difficult to believe. The way you put it, it can't be true.

How to get the most frequent value SQL

I have a table Orders(id_trip, id_order), table Trip(id_hotel, id_bus, id_type_of_trip) and table Hotel(id_hotel, name).
I would like to get name of the most frequent hotel in table Orders.
SELECT hotel.name from Orders
JOIN Trip
on Orders.id_trip = Trip.id_hotel
JOIN hotel
on trip.id_hotel = hotel.id_hotel
FROM (SELECT hotel.name, rank() over (order by cnt desc) rnk
FROM (SELECT hotel.name, count(*) cnt
FROM Orders
GROUP BY hotel.name))
WHERE rnk = 1;
The "most frequently occurring value" in a distribution is a distinct concept in statistics, with a technical name. It's called the MODE of the distribution. And Oracle has the STATS_MODE() function for it. https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/functions154.htm
For example, using the EMP table in the standard SCOTT schema, select stats_mode(deptno) from scott.emp will return 30 - the number of the department with the most employees. (30 is the department "name" or number, it is NOT the number of employees in that department!)
In your case:
select stats_mode(h.name) from (the rest of your query)
Note: if two or more hotels are tied for "most frequent", then STATS_MODE() will return one of them (non-deterministic). If you need all the tied values, you will need a different solution - a good example is in the documentation (linked above). This is a documented flaw in Oracle's understanding and implementation of the statistical concept.
Use FIRST for a single result:
SELECT MAX(hotel.name) KEEP (DENSE_RANK FIRST ORDER BY cnt DESC)
FROM (
SELECT hotel.name, COUNT(*) cnt
FROM orders
JOIN trip USING (id_trip)
JOIN hotel USING (id_hotel)
GROUP BY hotel.name
) t
Here is one method:
select name
from (select h.name,
row_number() over (order by count(*) desc) as seqnum -- use `rank()` if you want duplicates
from orders o join
trip t
on o.id_trip = t.id_trip join -- this seems like the right join condition
hotels h
on t.id_hotel = h.id_hotel
) oth
where seqnum = 1;
** Getting the most recent statistical mode out of a data sample **
I know it's more than a year, but here's my answer. I came across this question hoping to find a simpler solution than what I know, but alas, nope.
I had a similar situation where I needed to get the mode from a data sample, with the requirement to get the mode of the most recently inserted value if there were multiple modes.
In such a case neither the STATS_MODE nor the LAST aggregate functions would do (as they would tend to return the first mode found, not necessarily the mode with the most recent entries.)
In my case it was easy to use the ROWNUM pseudo-column because the tables in question were performance metric tables that only experienced inserts (not updates)
In this oversimplified example, I'm using ROWNUM - it could easily be changed to a timestamp or sequence field if you have one.
SELECT VALUE
FROM
(SELECT VALUE ,
COUNT( * ) CNT,
MAX( R ) R
FROM
( SELECT ID, ROWNUM R FROM FOO
)
GROUP BY ID
ORDER BY CNT DESC,
R DESC
)
WHERE
(
ROWNUM < 2
);
That is, get the total count and max ROWNUM for each value (I'm assuming the values are discrete. If they aren't, this ain't gonna work.)
Then sort so that the ones with largest counts come first, and for those with the same count, the one with the largest ROWNUM (indicating most recent insertion in my case).
Then skim off the top row.
Your specific data model should have a way to discern the most recent (or the oldest or whatever) rows inserted in your table, and if there are collisions, then there's not much of a way other than using ROWNUM or getting a random sample of size 1.
If this doesn't work for your specific case, you'll have to create your own custom aggregator.
Now, if you don't care which mode Oracle is going to pick (your bizness case just requires a mode and that's it, then STATS_MODE will do fine.

SQL Server: I have multiple records per day and I want to return only the first of the day

I have some records track inquires by DATETIME. There is an glitch in the system and sometimes a record will enter multiple times on the same day. I have a query with a bunch of correlated subqueries attached to these but the numbers are off because when there were those glitches in the system then these leads show up multiple times. I need the first entry of the day, I tried fooling around with MIN but I couldn't quite get it to work.
I currently have this, I am not sure if I am on the right track though.
SELECT SL.UserID, MIN(SL.Added) OVER (PARTITION BY SL.UserID)
FROM SourceLog AS SL
Here's one approach using row_number():
select *
from (
select *,
row_number() over (partition by userid, cast(added as date) order by added) rn
from sourcelog
) t
where rn = 1
You could use group by along with min to accomplish this.
Depending on how your data is structured if you are assigning a unique sequential number to each record created you could just return the lowest number created per day. Otherwise you would need to return the ID of the record with the earliest DATETIME value per day.
--Assumes sequential IDs
select
min(Id)
from
[YourTable]
group by
--the conversion is used to stip the time value out of the date/time
convert(date, [YourDateTime]

Find row number in a sort based on row id, then find its neighbours

Say that I have some SELECT statement:
SELECT id, name FROM people
ORDER BY name ASC;
I have a few million rows in the people table and the ORDER BY clause can be much more complex than what I have shown here (possibly operating on a dozen columns).
I retrieve only a small subset of the rows (say rows 1..11) in order to display them in the UI. Now, I would like to solve following problems:
Find the number of a row with a given id.
Display the 5 items before and the 5 items after a row with a given id.
Problem 2 is easy to solve once I have solved problem 1, as I can then use something like this if I know that the item I was looking for has row number 1000 in the sorted result set (this is the Firebird SQL dialect):
SELECT id, name FROM people
ORDER BY name ASC
ROWS 995 TO 1005;
I also know that I can find the rank of a row by counting all of the rows which come before the one I am looking for, but this can lead to very long WHERE clauses with tons of OR and AND in the condition. And I have to do this repeatedly. With my test data, this takes hundreds of milliseconds, even when using properly indexed columns, which is way too slow.
Is there some means of achieving this by using some SQL:2003 features (such as row_number supported in Firebird 3.0)? I am by no way an SQL guru and I need some pointers here. Could I create a cached view where the result would include a rank/dense rank/row index?
Firebird appears to support window functions (called analytic functions in Oracle). So you can do the following:
To find the "row" number of a a row with a given id:
select id, row_number() over (partition by NULL order by name, id)
from t
where id = <id>
This assumes the id's are unique.
To solve the second problem:
select t.*
from (select id, row_number() over (partition by NULL order by name, id) as rownum
from t
) t join
(select id, row_number() over (partition by NULL order by name, id) as rownum
from t
where id = <id>
) tid
on t.rownum between tid.rownum - 5 and tid.rownum + 5
I might suggest something else, though, if you can modify the table structure. Most databases offer the ability to add an auto-increment column when a row is inserted. If your records are never deleted, this can server as your counter, simplifying your queries.