How to make all rows in a table identical which the exception of 1 field? - sql

Question

I am trying to make it so all the users have the same items because I am doing an experiment with my app and need the experimental control of flattened data.
I used the following SQL statement in my last attempt:
insert into has (email,id,qty,price,item_info,image)
select 'b#localhost.com',id,qty,price,item_info,image
from
(
select * from has
where email != 'b#localhost.com'
) as o
where o.id not in
(
select id from has
where email = 'b#localhost.com'
);
This should add all items which 'b#localhost.com' does not already have but other users do have, to 'b#localhost.com's inventory. (the 'has' table)
However, I get the following error:
The statement was aborted because it would have caused a duplicate key value in a unique or primary key constraint or unique index
I understand what this error means, but I do not understand why it is occurring. My statement inserts all records which that email doesn't already have, so there should not be any duplicate id/email pairs.
The database structure is shown below, circles are attributes, squares are tables, and diamonds are relationship sets. The HAS table is a relationship set on USER_ACCOUNT and ITEM, where the primary keys are email and id respectively.

Answer 1

Please try the following...
INSERT INTO has ( email,
id,
qty,
price,
item_info,
image )
SELECT a.email,
b.id,
a.qty,
a.price,
a.item_info,
a.image
FROM has a
CROSS JOIN has b
JOIN
(
SELECT email,
id
FROM has
) c ON a.email = c.email AND
b.id <> c.id;
The CROSS JOIN appends a copy of each row of has to each row of has. Please see http://www.w3resource.com/sql/joins/cross-join.php for more information on CROSS JOIN's.
Each row of the resulting dataset will have two id fields, two email fields, two qty fields, etc. By giving each instance of has an alias we create the fields a.id, b.id, a.email, etc.
We then compare each combination of "old" email address and "new" id to a list of existing email / id combinations and insert the old values with the new id replacing the old one into has
If you have any questions or comments, then please feel free to post a Comment accordingly.
Further Reading
http://www.w3resource.com/sql/joins/cross-join.php for more information on CROSS JOIN's
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_in.asp for more information on WHERE's IN operator
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_groupby.asp for more information on GROUP BY

Answer 2

I think the issue here is not that the code is trying to insert something which already exists, but that it's trying to insert more than one thing with the same PK. In lieu of an response to my comment, here is one way to get around the issue:
INSERT INTO has (email,id,qty,price,item_info,image)
SELECT
'b#localhost.com',
source.id,
source.qty,
source.price,
source.item_info,
source.image
FROM
(
SELECT email, id, qyt, price, item_info, image FROM has
) as source
JOIN
(
SELECT min(email) as min_email, id FROM has GROUP BY by id)
) as filter ON
filter.min_email = source.email
WHERE
source.id not in
(
SELECT id from has WHERE email = 'b#localhost.com'
);
The key difference from your original code is my extra join to the subquery I've aliased as filter. This limits you to inserting the has details from a single email per id. There are other ways to do the same, but I figured that this would be a safe bet for being supported by Derby.
I removed the WHERE clause from the source sub-query as that is handled by the final WHERE.