SQL Server inconsistent results over 2 columns using = and <> - sql-server-2012

I am trying to replace a manual process with an SQL-SERVER (2012) based automated one. Prior to doing this, I need to analyse the data in question over time to produce some data quality measures/statistics.
Part of this entails comparing the values in two columns. I need to count where they match and where they do not so I can prove my varied stats tally. This should be simple but seems not to be.
Basically, I have a table containing two columns both of which are defined identically as type INT with null values permitted.
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE COLUMN1 is NULL
returns zero rows
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE COLUMN2 is NULL
also returns zero rows.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM TABLE
returns 3780
and
SELECT * FROM TABLE
returns 3780 rows.
So I have established that there are 3780 rows in my table and that there are no NULL values in the columns I am interested in.
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE COLUMN1=COLUMN2
returns zero rows as expected.
Conversely therefore in a table of 3780 rows, with no NULL values in the columns being compared, I expect the following SQL
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE COLUMN1<>COLUMN2
or in desperation
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE NOT (COLUMN1=COLUMN2)
to return 3780 rows but it doesn't. It returns 3709!
I have tried SELECT * instead of SELECT COUNT(*) in case NULL values in some other columns were impacting but this made no difference, I still got 3709 rows.
Also, there are some negative values in 73 rows for COLUMN1 - is this what causes the issue (but 73+3709=3782 not 3780 my number of rows)?
What is a better way of proving the values in these numeric columns never match?
Update 09/09/2016: At Lamaks suggestion below I isolated the 71 missing rows and found that in each one, COLUMN1 = NULL and COLUMN2 = -99. So the issue is NULL values but why doesn't
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE COLUMN1 is NULL
pick them up? Here is the information in Information Schema Views and System Views:
ORDINAL_POSITION COLUMN_NAME DATA_TYPE CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH IS_NULLABLE
1 ID int NULL NO
.. .. .. .. ..
7 COLUMN1 int NULL YES
8 COLUMN2 int NULL YES
CONSTRAINT_NAME
PK__TABLE___...
name type_desc is_unique is_primary_key
PK__TABLE___... CLUSTERED 1 1
Suspect the CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH of NULL must be the issue?

You can find the count based on the below query using left join.
--To find COLUMN1=COLUMN2 Count
--------------------------------
SELECT COUNT(T1.ID)
FROM TABLE T1
LEFT JOIN TABLE T2 ON T1.COLUMN1=T2.COLUMN2
WHERE t2.id is not null
--To find COLUMN1<>COLUMN2 Count
--------------------------------
SELECT COUNT(T1.ID)
FROM TABLE T1
LEFT JOIN TABLE T2 ON T1.COLUMN1=T2.COLUMN2
WHERE t2.id is null

Through the exhaustive comment chain above with all help gratefully received, I suspect this to be a problem with the table creation script data types for the columns in question. I have no explanation from an SQL code point of view, as to why the "is NULL" intermittently picked up NULL values.
I was able to identify the 71 rows that were not being picked up as expected by using an "except".
i.e. I flipped the SQL that was missing 71 rows, namely:
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE COLUMN1 <> COLUMN 2
through an except:
SELECT * FROM TABLE
EXCEPT
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE COLUMN1 <> COLUMN 2
Through that I could see that COLUMN1 was always NULL in the missing 71 rows - even though the "is NULL" was not picking them up for me when I ran
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE COLUMN1 IS NULL
which returned zero rows.
Regarding the comparison of values stored in the columns, as my data volumes are low (3780 recs), I am just forcing the issue by using ISNULL and setting to 9999 (a numeric value I know my data will never contain) to make it work.
SELECT * FROM TABLE
WHERE ISNULL(COLUMN1, 9999) <> COLUMN2
I then get the 3780 rows as expected. It's not ideal but it'll have to do and is more or less appropriate as there are null values in there so they have to be handled.
Also, using Bertrands tip above I could view the table creation script and the columns were definitely set up as INT.

Related

How do I compare whether same/intersection data is there in one and another row in same table when I have huge data in the table in sql server?

I have a table with the sample data below. Now, I just want to compare one record with all other records in the same table and we have to give ID if that record colloids with any other records in the remaining records. And column is with comma separated data, So if we have 'A,C' as Name in one record and 'A' in another record(Check the input from text) then it colloid each other because 'A' is common in both.
In the same way one of the record is not having anything in the Name it is NULL. When it is Null it should colloid with remaining other records. Like this Name column I have around 10 columns to verify data.
Input
ID
Name
1
A,C
2
B
3
A
4
NULL
OUTPUT
ID
ColloidID
1
3
1
4
2
4
3
1
3
4
4
1
4
2
4
3
Problem : I have implemented solution like below, and it working fine as expected. But the thing here is it is fine when less data in the table(<100k) but it's taking more time and space when dealing with millions of data(Ex : >20M Data)
SELECT DISTINCT A.ID,B.ID AS ColloidID
FROM #Temp1 A
CROSS APPLY #Temp1 B
WHERE A.ID<>B.ID
AND master.dbo.fIntersection(COALESCE(A.Name,B.Name,''),COALESCE(B.Name,A.Name,'')) = 1
Ideally you should not store multiple pieces of info in a single column.
Be that as it may, you can use a nested EXISTS with STRING_SPLIT to compare the two columns.
SELECT t1.ID, t2.ID
FROM #Temp1 t1
JOIN #Temp1 t2 ON t2.ID <> t1.ID
AND (t1.Name IS NULL OR t2.Name IS NULL
OR EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM STRING_SPLIT(t1.Name, ',') s1
JOIN STRING_SPLIT(t2.Name, ',') s2 ON s2.value = s1.value
)
)
ORDER BY
t1.ID,
t2.ID;
db<>fiddle
20M isn't a lot of data, provided a good database design is used, with proper indexes. This is definitely not a good design. It violates the most basic design rule - one value per field. As a result, it's impossible to index Name, forcing 4*10^14 comparisons.
The only way to get acceptable performance is to fix the design. To do that Name has to be split into separate rows. The data needs to be stored in a table whose Name column is covered by an index or primary key:
create table #Id_Names (
ID bigint not null,
Name varchar(30) null,
INDEX IX_Id_Names (Name,ID)
);
GO
INSERT INTO #Id_Names (Id,Name)
select ID,value
from #Temp1 t
CROSS APPLY STRING_SPLIT(Name,',');
After that, the query is simplified to :
SELECT
t1.ID,t2.ID as ColloidID
FROM #Id_Names t1
INNER JOIN #Id_Names t2
ON t1.ID<>t2.ID
AND (t1.Name=t2.Name
OR t1.Name IS NULL
OR t2.Name IS NULL)
This can run a lot faster. The only real problem is the logic of treating NULL as a wildcard. This will return the entire table. And since the table joins itself, each null will result in (20M-1)^2 extra rows. The same relations will be repeated twice, eg (1,4) and (4,1)
If #Temp1 was a proper table, an alternative would be to create an indexed view. Creating an index over a VIEW essentially generates, stores and updates its results automatically.
Another option is to create a Clustered Columnstore index. This provides both compression and acceleration. The data is stored per column in buckets of roughly 1M rows. In each bucket, each column value is only stored once.
create table #Id_Names (
ID bigint not null,
Name varchar(30) null,
INDEX CCI_Id_Names CLUSTERED COLUMNSTORE
);

SQL - get only colums from a table where not all values are nulls

SQL question:
How do I get all column values from columns where not all values are null?
Table A
COL1 COL2 COL3 COL4 COL5
---------------------------------------
abc 1 NULL NULL NULL
def 2 NULL testA NULL
NULL 3 NULL testB NULL
jkl 4 NULL NULL NULL
I want to get
COL1 COL2 COL4
-----------------------
abc 1 NULL
def 2 testA
NULL 3 testB
jkl 4 NULL
Is there a sql or plsql solution achieve this this?
To avoid answers that are irrelevant: assume I have a million rows.
I want the result to be a view or a result table.
Not a written output.
I found a similar question, but it does not satisfy my need:
How to select columns from a table which have non null values?
The column names can be quickly grabbed through this query
select column_name
from all_tab_columns
where lower(table_name)='tableA' and num_distinct > 0;
I understand I could create a script with a cursor and then loop through it, adding the result to a new table or view.
This is not what I need. I wondered if this could be done using a single query, using pivot/unpivot or something else.
What you are asking for is not possible in plain SQL, unless you know ahead of time which columns only have NULL everywhere. (It seems that you don't want to assume that you know that.)
Which columns are included in the output - how many columns, their names, and in what order they appear - must be hard-coded in the SELECT clause, it can't be determined at runtime. On the other hand, you will only know which columns are all-NULL only after reading the data (meaning, at runtime) - or else you must have that information from an external source.
The only way to do what you seem to want to do is with dynamic SQL. That is an advanced topic, and a technique generally considered a poor business practice.
WHY do you not want to show columns with all-NULL values? Are you sure that requirement is meaningful?
try these steps, it may help:
Create table temp as (Select * from TableA)
Declare NbrRows Number(10);
plsql_block VARCHAR2(1000);
CountNullRows Number (10)
Select count(*) as nbr
into NbrRows
from TableA
Select count(COL1) as nbr
into CountNullRows
from TableA where COL1 is null
if (NbrRows = CountNullRows) then
Alter table Temp drop column COL1
endif
Select count(COL2) as nbr
into CountNullRows
from TableA where COL2 is null
if (NbrRows = CountNullRows) then
Alter table Temp drop column COL2
endif
Select count(COL3) as nbr
into CountNullRows
from TableA where COL3 is null
if (NbrRows = CountNullRows) then
Alter table Temp drop column COL3
endif
...etc...
Do the same thing for all your columns
You have the desired result in the Tem table.

SQL selection from one of four columns?

I have a database table with four columns:
Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | Column 4
The value in each of those four columns will either be a price such as ($3.99) or will have the value 'Listed'.
I would like to know the best SQL query to find the following:
Get all rows where all four rows equal 'Listed'
Get all rows where some of the columns have prices and some have the value 'Listed'
Try this Query !
When all four rows equals to 'Listed' :
SELECT *
FROM [table name]
WHERE
Column1='Listed'
AND
Column2='Listed'
AND
Column3='Listed'
AND
Column4='Listed'
When some of the columns have prices and some have the value 'Listed' :
SELECT *
FROM [table name]
WHERE
(
Column1='Listed'
OR
Column2='Listed'
OR
Column3='Listed'
OR
Column4='Listed'
)
AND
(
Column1 LIKE '$%.%'
OR
Column2 LIKE '$%.%'
OR
Column3 LIKE '$%.%'
OR
Column4 LIKE '$%.%'
)
These are actually fairly simple queries
Select where all 4 columns are listed.
SELECT * FROM {table}
WHERE Column1='Listed' AND Column2='Listed' AND Column3='Listed' AND Column4='Listed'
Select where at least one column is listed and at least one column is a price(numeric)
SELECT * FROM {table}
WHERE (Column1='Listed' OR Column2='Listed' OR Column3='Listed' OR Column4='Listed')
AND (ISNUMERIC(Column1) OR ISNUMERIC(Column2) OR ISNUMERIC(Column3) OR ISNUMERIC(Column4))
Something like these should give you what you want, no guarantees though since different database engines use some slightly different SQL.
I think you should do something like this:
SELECT * FROM `testing` WHERE Col1='Listed' AND Col2='Listed' AND Col3='Listed' AND Col4='Listed'
And for the "OR" statement:
SELECT * FROM `testing` WHERE Col1='Listed' OR Col2='Listed' OR Col3='Listed' OR Col4='Listed'
Of cours you'll need to replace Col1, Col2, Col3 and Col4 with your Column names. Also change your table name.

Oracle Compare data between two different table

I have two table one is having all field VARCHAR2 but other having different type for different data.
For Example :
Table One
==========================
Col 1 VARCHAR2 UNIQUE KEY
Col 2 VARCHAR2
Col 3 VARCHAR2
===========================
Table Two
==========================
Col One VARCHAR2 UNIQUE KEY
Col Two TIMESTAMP
Col Three NUMBER
==========================
we are having one mapping table. it denotes which column of Table One has to compare with which column of Table Two.
For Example
Mapping Table
==============================
Table One Table Two
==============================
Col 1 Col One
Col 2 Col Three
Col 3 Col Two
==============================
Now with the help of UNIQUE KEY of TABLE ONE we have to find same row in TABLE TWO and compare rows column by column and get changes in data.
Currently we are using java program for comparing data row by row and column by column and getting changes between data in rows with same UNIQUE KEY. it is working fine but taking too much time as we are having 100000 records in DB.
Now my question is : is there any way i can compare data at SQL level and get changes in data?
You can do it 'manually' with a query like this: It's a lot of work, but there are only three different types of checks you need to do, so it's not very complex:
select
*
from
Table1 t1
full outer join Table2 t2 on t2.ID = t1.ID
where
-- Check ID, either record does not exist in either table.
t1.ID is null or
t2.ID = null or
-- Not nullable field can be easily compared.
t1.NotNullableField1 <> t2.NotNUllableField1 or
-- Nullable field is slightly more work.
t1.NullableField1 <> t2.NullableField1 or
(t1.NullableField1 is null and t2.NullableField1 is not null) or
(t1.NullableField1 is not null and t2.NullableField1 is null)
Another solution is to use MINUS, which is a bit like UNION, only it returns a dataset minus the records in a second dataset:
select * from Table1 t1
MINUS
select * from Table2 t2
This works only one way (which might be fine for your purpose), but you can also combine it with UNION to make it bidirectional.
select
*
from
( select * from Table1
MINUS
select * from Table2)
UNION ALL
( select * from Table2
MINUS
select * from Table1)
The output of both solutions is a bit different.
In the FULL OUTER JOIN query, the IDs will be joined and the values of the matching rows will be displayed next to each other as a single row.
In the MINUS query, the result will be presented as a single dataset. If a record does not exist in either one table, it will be displayed. If a record (ID) exists in both tables, but other fields are different, you will get both rows. So it's a bit harder to compare them.
See: http://www.techonthenet.com/oracle/minus.php

Matching records with wild cards from two different tables

I have two tables with the following data (amongst other data).
Table 1
Value 1
'003232339639
'00264644106272
0026461226291#
I need to match the second column in the table below using column 1 as an identifier
Table 2
Value 1 Value 2
00264 1
0026485 2
0026481 3
00322889 4
00323283 5
00323288 6
So the results I need will be as follows:
Result
Table 1, Value 1 Table 2, Value 2
'003232339639......4
'00264644106272....1
0026461226291#.....1
Any help will be appreciated - very stuck here and doing it manually at the moment in excel.
I hope this format makes sense - first time I am using this forum.
Melany, the question is kind of confusing (not written correctly) perhaps that's why no one is responding. I'll make an attempt to explain how similar selects is done
SELECTING DATA FROM TABLE1 WHERE A MATCHING COLUMN (COL1) EXISTS IN BOTH TABLE
SELECT * FROM TABLE1
INNER JOIN TABLE2
ON TABLE1.COL1 = TABLE2.COL1
AND TABLE1.COL1 = 'XYZ'
USING A SUBSELECT FOR THE SAME
SELECT * FROM TABLE1
WHERE COL1 IN(SELECT COL1 FROM TABLE2
WHERE COL1 = 'XYZ')
In SQL, the wildcard for one or more characters is %, and is to be used with the keyword LIKE.
So I suggest the following (if your purpose is really to match rows in Table1 for which Value1 begins like a value in Table2.Value1):
SELECT Table1.Value1, Table2.Value2 WHERE Table1.Value1 LIKE CONCAT(Table2.Value1, '%');
Edit: replace CONCAT(x, y) with x || y for some DBMSs (SQLite for instance).