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Order by not working when insert in temp table
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Closed 5 years ago.
Below is my query:
CREATE TABLE #TEMP(CID INT,PID INT,STAT VARCHAR(20),TIN DATETIME, TOUT DATETIME)
INSERT INTO #TEMP(CID,STAT,PID,TIN,TOUT)
SELECT DISTINCT CID,STST,PID,TIN,TOUT
FROM CVTBL
WHERE STAT = 'YES'
AND PID = '12'
ORDER BY CID DESC;
select * from #temp
drop table #temp
This is a very straight forward query. However everytime when I run the select * from #temp it produced different result sets but the total number of rows is the same. How does that work?
I'm going to elaborate on this as an answer,but both Veljko89 and tarheel have hit the nail on the head in the comments they made on the OP's question.
Data, in SQL Server, is stored in unordered HEAPS. Regardless of the order you INSERT the data, regardless of if you have a CLUSTERED INDEX or not, performing a SELECT statement without an ORDER BY has no guarenteed order. Period.
The only (yes that's right ONLY) way to guarentee the order of a result set is to (unsurprisingly) use the ORDER BY clause. If you omit that clause SQL Server will return the rows in whatever order it processed that rows, which could be any order at all. For small tables, yes, you are likely to get the same order, and if you have a CLUSTERED INDEX then that improves that possibility, but that's just it, it's a possibility.
Once you get to larger tables, and start introducing multiple cores processing the information, then the order will become more and more randomised; as with larger datasets the data that is read first is more likely to vary, and with multiple cores one may finish processing its data first, however, had data from "further" in the table.
So, in summary: Add an ORDER BY clause (so that each column has a unique set) to ensure your queries always return data in the same order.
Related
Posting two questions:
1.
Let's say there is a query:
SELECT C1, C2, C3 from TABLE;
When this query is fired for the first time,it retrieves all the values in a certain order.
Next time, when the same query is fired, will the previous order be retained?
There are 2 tables, TABLE1 and TABLE2, both of them have identical data.
Will (SELECT * from TABLE1) and (SELECT * from TABLE1) retrieve the same order of rows?
SQL tables represent unordered sets. Period. There is no ordering in a result set unless you explicitly include an ORDER BY.
It is that simple. If you want data in a particular order, then you need to use ORDER BY. That is how relational databases work.
The same query can return results in different orders each time the query is executed. There are no guarantees about the order -- unless the query has an ORDER BY for the outermost SELECT.
No, unless you are fetching data from result cache!
No, unless they are very small tables and your query runs with low parallelism.
Sorry for extra answer, but I see Tim claims that the query will return same result as long as the underlying table(s) is not modified, and the query has same execution plan.
Snowflake executes the queries in parallel, therefore the order of data is not predictable unless ORDER BY is used.
Let's create a table (big enough to be processed in parallel), and run a simple test case:
-- running on medium warehouse
create or replace table my_test_table ( id number, name varchar ) as
select seq4(), 'gokhan' || seq4() from table(generator(rowcount=>1000000000));
alter session set USE_CACHED_RESULT = false;
select * from my_test_table limit 10;
You will see that it will return different rows every time you run.
To answer both questions short: No.
If your query has no ORDER BY-clause, the SELECT statement always returns an unordered set. This means: Even if you query the same table twice and the data didnt change, SELECT without ORDER BY can retrieve different row-orders.
https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/sql/select.html
I have the following table:
CREATE TABLE dbo.TestSort
(
Id int NOT NULL IDENTITY (1, 1),
Value int NOT NULL
)
The Value column could (and is expected to) contain duplicates.
Let's also assume there are already 1000 rows in the table.
I am trying to prove a point about unstable sorting.
Given this query that returns a 'page' of 10 results from the first 1000 inserted results:
SELECT TOP 10 * FROM TestSort WHERE Id <= 1000 ORDER BY Value
My intuition tells me that two runs of this query could return different rows if the Value column contains repeated values.
I'm basing this on the facts that:
the sort is not stable
if new rows are inserted in the table between the two runs of the query, it could possibly create a re-balancing of B-trees (the Value column may be indexed or not)
EDIT: For completeness: I assume rows never change once inserted, and are never deleted.
In contrast, a query with stable sort (ordering also by Id) should always return the same results, since IDs are unique:
SELECT TOP 10 * FROM TestSort WHERE Id <= 1000 ORDER BY Value, Id
The question is: Is my intuition correct? If yes, can you provide an actual example of operations that would produce different results (at least "on your machine")? You could modify the query, add indexes on the Values column etc.
I don't care about the exact query, but about the principle.
I am using MS SQL Server (2014), but am equally satisfied with answers for any SQL database.
If not, then why?
Your intuition is correct. In SQL, the sort for order by is not stable. So, if you have ties, they can be returned in any order. And, the order can change from one run to another.
The documentation sort of explains this:
Using OFFSET and FETCH as a paging solution requires running the query
one time for each "page" of data returned to the client application.
For example, to return the results of a query in 10-row increments,
you must execute the query one time to return rows 1 to 10 and then
run the query again to return rows 11 to 20 and so on. Each query is
independent and not related to each other in any way. This means that,
unlike using a cursor in which the query is executed once and state is
maintained on the server, the client application is responsible for
tracking state. To achieve stable results between query requests using
OFFSET and FETCH, the following conditions must be met:
The underlying data that is used by the query must not change. That is, either the rows touched by the query are not updated or all
requests for pages from the query are executed in a single transaction
using either snapshot or serializable transaction isolation. For more
information about these transaction isolation levels, see SET
TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL (Transact-SQL).
The ORDER BY clause contains a column or combination of columns that are guaranteed to be unique.
Although this specifically refers to offset/fetch, it clearly applies to running the query multiple times without those clauses.
If you have ties when ordering the order by is not stable.
LiveDemo
CREATE TABLE #TestSort
(
Id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY (1, 1) PRIMARY KEY,
Value INT NOT NULL
) ;
DECLARE #c INT = 0;
WHILE #c < 100000
BEGIN
INSERT INTO #TestSort(Value)
VALUES ('2');
SET #c += 1;
END
Example:
SELECT TOP 10 *
FROM #TestSort
ORDER BY Value
OPTION (MAXDOP 4);
DBCC DROPCLEANBUFFERS; -- run to clear cache
SELECT TOP 10 *
FROM #TestSort
ORDER BY Value
OPTION (MAXDOP 4);
The point is I force query optimizer to use parallel plan so there is no guaranteed that it will read data sequentially like Clustered index probably will do when no parallelism is involved.
You cannot be sure how Query Optimizer will read data unless you explicitly force to sort result in specific way using ORDER BY Id, Value.
For more info read No Seatbelt - Expecting Order without ORDER BY.
I think this post will answer your question:
Is SQL order by clause guaranteed to be stable ( by Standards)
The result is everytime the same when you are in a single-threaded environment. Since multi-threading is used, you can't guarantee.
Few days ago I came across a strange problem with the Order By , While creating a new table I used
Select - Into - From and Order By (column name)
and when I open that table see tables are not arranged accordingly.
I re-verified it multiple times to make sure I am doing the right thing.
One more thing I would like to add is till the time I don't use INTO, I can see the desired result but as soon as I create new table, I see there is no Order for tht column. Please help me !
Thanks in advance.. Before posting the question I did research for 3 days but no solution yet
SELECT
[WorkOrderID], [ProductID], [OrderQty], [StockedQty]
INTO
[AdventureWorks2012].[Production].[WorkOrder_test]
FROM
[AdventureWorks2012].[Production].[WorkOrder]
ORDER BY
[StockedQty]
SQL 101 for beginners: SELECT statements have no defined order unless you define one.
When i open that table
That likely issues a SELECT (TOP 1000 IIFC) without order.
While creating a new table i used Select - Into - From and Order By (column name)
Which sort of is totally irrelevant - you basically waste performance ordering the input data.
You want an order in a select, MAKE ONE by adding an order by clause to the select. The table's internal order is by clustered index, but an query can return results in any order it wants. Fundamental SQL issue, as I said in the first sentence. Any good book on sql covers that in one of the first chapters. SQL uses a set approach, sets have no intrinsic order.
Firstly T-SQL is a set based language and sets don't have orders. More over it also doesn't mean serial execution of commands i.e, the above query is not executed in sequence written but the processing order for a SELECT statement is as:
1.FROM
2.ON
3.JOIN
4.WHERE
5.GROUP BY
6.WITH CUBE or WITH ROLLUP
7.HAVING
8.SELECT
9.DISTINCT
10.ORDER BY
Now when you execute your query without into selected column data gets ordered based on the condition specified in 'Order By' clause but when Into is used format of new_table is determined by evaluating the expressions in the select list.(Remember order by clause has not been evaluated yet).
The columns in new_table are created in the order specified by the select list but rows cannot be ordered. It's a limitation of Into clause you can refer here:
Specifying an ORDER BY clause does not guarantee the rows are inserted
in the specified order.
Consider this Table:
Table: ORDER
Columns: id, order_num, order_date, order_status
This table has 1 million records. I want to update the order_status to value of '5', for a bunch (about 10,000) of order_num's that i will be reading from a input text file.
My SQL could be:
(A) update ORDER set order_status=5 where order_num in ('34343', '34454', '454545',...)
OR
(B) update ORDER set order_status=5 where order_num='34343'
I can loop over this update several times until I have covered my 10,000 order updates.
(Also note that i have few Child Tables of ORDER like ORDER_ITEMS, where similar status must be updated and information audited)
My problem is here is:
How can i Audit this update in a separate ORDER_AUDIT Table:
Order_Num: 34343 - Updated Successfully
Order_Num: 34454 - Order Not Found
Order_Num: 454545 - Updated Successfully
Order_Num: 45457 - Order Not Found
If i go for batch update as in (A), I cannot Audit at Order Level.
If i go for Single Order at at time update as in (B), I will have to loop 10,000 times - that may be quite slow - but I can Audit at Order level in this case.
Is there any other way?
First of all, build an external table over your "input text file". That way you can run a simple single UPDATE statement:
update ORDER
set order_status=5
where order_num in ( select col1 from ext_table order by col1)
Neat and efficient. (Sorting the sub-query is optional: it may improve the performance of the update but the key point is, we can treat external tables like regular tables and use the full panoply of the SELECT syntax on them.) Find out more.
Secondly use the RETURNING clause to capture the hits.
update ORDER
set order_status=5
where order_num in ( select col1 from ext_table order by col1)
returning order_num bulk collect into l_nums;
l_nums in this context is a PL/SQL collection of type number. The RETURNING clause will give you all the ORDER_NUM values for updated rows only. Find out more.
If you declare the type for l_nums as a SQL nested table object you can use it in further SQL statements for your auditing:
insert into order_audit
select 'Order_Num: '||to_char(t.column_value)||' - Updated Succesfully'
from table ( l_nums ) t
/
insert into order_audit
select 'Order_Num: '||to_char(col1)||' - Order Not Found'
from ext_table
minus
select * from table ( l_nums )
/
Notes on performance:
You don't say how many of the rows you have in the input text file will match. Perhaps you don't know (actually on re-reading it's not clear whether 10,000 is the number of rows in the file or the number of matching rows). Pl/SQL collections use private session memory, so very large collections can blow the PGA. However, you should be able to cope with ten thousand NUMBER instances without blinching.
My solution does require you to read the external table twice. This shouldn't be a problem. And it will certainly be way faster than dynamically assembling one hundred IN clauses of a thousand numbers and looping over each.
Note that update is often the slowest bulk operation known to man. There are ways of speeding them up, but those methods can get quite involved. However, if this is something you'll want to do often and performance becomes a sticking point you should read this OraFAQ article.
Use MERGE. Firstly load data into a temporary table called ORDER_UPD_TMP with only one column id. You can do it using SQLDeveloper import feature. Then use MERGE in order to udpate your base table:
MERGE INTO ORDER b
USING (
SELECT order_id
FROM ORDER_UPD_TMP
) e
ON (b.id = e.id)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE SET b.status = 5
You can also update with a different status when records don't match. Check the documentation for more details:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28286/statements_9016.htm
I think the best way will be:
to import your file to the database first
then do few SQL UPDATE/INSERT queries in one transaction to update status for all orders and create audit records.
Given the example queries below (Simplified examples only)
DECLARE #DT int; SET #DT=20110717; -- yes this is an INT
WITH LargeData AS (
SELECT * -- This is a MASSIVE table indexed on dt field
FROM mydata
WHERE dt=#DT
), Ordered AS (
SELECT TOP 10 *
, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY valuefield DESC) AS Rank_Number
FROM LargeData
)
SELECT * FROM Ordered
and ...
DECLARE #DT int; SET #DT=20110717;
BEGIN TRY DROP TABLE #LargeData END TRY BEGIN CATCH END CATCH; -- dump any possible table.
SELECT * -- This is a MASSIVE table indexed on dt field
INTO #LargeData -- put smaller results into temp
FROM mydata
WHERE dt=#DT;
WITH Ordered AS (
SELECT TOP 10 *
, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY valuefield DESC) AS Rank_Number
FROM #LargeData
)
SELECT * FROM Ordered
Both produce the same results, which is a limited and ranked list of values from a list based on a fields data.
When these queries get considerably more complicated (many more tables, lots of criteria, multiple levels of "with" table alaises, etc...) the bottom query executes MUCH faster then the top one. Sometimes in the order of 20x-100x faster.
The Question is...
Is there some kind of query HINT or other SQL option that would tell the SQL Server to perform the same kind of optimization automatically, or other formats of this that would involve a cleaner aproach (trying to keep the format as much like query 1 as possible) ?
Note that the "Ranking" or secondary queries is just fluff for this example, the actual operations performed really don't matter too much.
This is sort of what I was hoping for (or similar but the idea is clear I hope). Remember this query below does not actually work.
DECLARE #DT int; SET #DT=20110717;
WITH LargeData AS (
SELECT * -- This is a MASSIVE table indexed on dt field
FROM mydata
WHERE dt=#DT
**OPTION (USE_TEMP_OR_HARDENED_OR_SOMETHING) -- EXAMPLE ONLY**
), Ordered AS (
SELECT TOP 10 *
, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY valuefield DESC) AS Rank_Number
FROM LargeData
)
SELECT * FROM Ordered
EDIT: Important follow up information!
If in your sub query you add
TOP 999999999 -- improves speed dramatically
Your query will behave in a similar fashion to using a temp table in a previous query. I found the execution times improved in almost the exact same fashion. WHICH IS FAR SIMPLIER then using a temp table and is basically what I was looking for.
However
TOP 100 PERCENT -- does NOT improve speed
Does NOT perform in the same fashion (you must use the static Number style TOP 999999999 )
Explanation:
From what I can tell from the actual execution plan of the query in both formats (original one with normal CTE's and one with each sub query having TOP 99999999)
The normal query joins everything together as if all the tables are in one massive query, which is what is expected. The filtering criteria is applied almost at the join points in the plan, which means many more rows are being evaluated and joined together all at once.
In the version with TOP 999999999, the actual execution plan clearly separates the sub querys from the main query in order to apply the TOP statements action, thus forcing creation of an in memory "Bitmap" of the sub query that is then joined to the main query. This appears to actually do exactly what I wanted, and in fact it may even be more efficient since servers with large ammounts of RAM will be able to do the query execution entirely in MEMORY without any disk IO. In my case we have 280 GB of RAM so well more then could ever really be used.
Not only can you use indexes on temp tables but they allow the use of statistics and the use of hints. I can find no refernce to being able to use the statistics in the documentation on CTEs and it says specifically you cann't use hints.
Temp tables are often the most performant way to go when you have a large data set when the choice is between temp tables and table variables even when you don't use indexes (possobly because it will use statistics to develop the plan) and I might suspect the implementation of the CTE is more like the table varaible than the temp table.
I think the best thing to do though is see how the excutionplans are different to determine if it is something that can be fixed.
What exactly is your objection to using the temp table when you know it performs better?
The problem is that in the first query SQL Server query optimizer is able to generate a query plan. In the second query a good query plan isn't able to be generated because you're inserting the values into a new temporary table. My guess is there is a full table scan going on somewhere that you're not seeing.
What you may want to do in the second query is insert the values into the #LargeData temporary table like you already do and then create a non-clustered index on the "valuefield" column. This might help to improve your performance.
It is quite possible that SQL is optimizing for the wrong value of the parameters.
There are a couple of options
Try using option(RECOMPILE). There is a cost to this as it recompiles the query every time but if different plans are needed it might be worth it.
You could also try using OPTION(OPTIMIZE FOR #DT=SomeRepresentatvieValue) The problem with this is you pick the wrong value.
See I Smell a Parameter! from The SQL Server Query Optimization Team blog