Using Postgres 9.3, I found out that I can perform something like this:
SELECT generate_series(1,10);
But I can't do this:
SELECT (SELECT generate_series(1,10));
Can I somehow cast SELECT result to setof int to use it same as result from generate_series()?
What exactly is happening there why I can use result from function but not from SELECT?
Your first form is a non-standard feature of Postgres. It allows SRF (Set Returning Functions) in the SELECT list, which are expanded to multiple rows:
Is there something like a zip() function in PostgreSQL that combines two arrays?
Note: that's working for functions, not for sub-selects. That's why your second SELECT is simply invalid syntax.
Standard SQL does not have a provision for that at all, so the feature is frowned upon by some and clean alternatives have been provided (thanks to improvements in the SQL standard). It is largely superseded by the LATERAL feature in Postgres 9.3+:
What is the difference between LATERAL and a subquery in PostgreSQL?
The simple form can be replaced by:
SELECT g
FROM generate_series(1,10) g;
Whenever possible move SRF to the FROM clause and treat them like tables - since version 9.3 that's almost always possible.
Note that g serves as table and column alias automatically in the example. g in SELECT g binds to a column name first. More explicit syntax:
SELECT g
FROM generate_series(1,10) AS t(g); -- table_alias(column_alias)
You need to understand the difference between a row, a set of rows (~ a table) and an array. This would give you an array of integer:
SELECT ARRAY(SELECT g FROM generate_series(1,10) g) AS g_arr;
Browse the tags generate-series and set-returning-functions for many related answers with code examples.
Related
This is my first question here so sorry if I'm doing something wrong.
I have a function in PostgreSQL which returns a type and I want to display all fields from that type.
At first I was doing the following SQL:
SELECT (FC_FUNCTION(FIELD_A, FIELD_B, FIELD_C)).*
FROM TABLE
But I noticed that it was running way too slow. After checking it looked like it was running the function again for each field the type had. Changing the SQL to the following not only returned the same results, but was way faster:
SELECT (X).*
FROM (SELECT FC_FUNCTION(FIELD_A, FIELD_B, FIELD_C) AS X FROM TABLE) A
Is this the correct way of doing it? It feels to me more of a work around than a solution. Thanks!
This is documented:
[...] these two queries have the same result:
SELECT (myfunc(x)).* FROM some_table;
SELECT (myfunc(x)).a, (myfunc(x)).b, (myfunc(x)).c FROM some_table;
Tip
PostgreSQL handles column expansion by actually transforming the first form into the second. So, in this example, myfunc() would get invoked three times per row with either syntax. If it's an expensive function you may wish to avoid that, which you can do with a query like:
SELECT m.* FROM some_table, LATERAL myfunc(x) AS m;
Placing the function in a LATERAL FROM item keeps it from being invoked more than once per row. m.* is still expanded into m.a, m.b, m.c, but now those variables are just references to the output of the FROM item. (The LATERAL keyword is optional here, but we show it to clarify that the function is getting x from some_table.)
In a presentation on Window functions made by EDB (https://youtu.be/XO1WnmJs9RI), they start out with what they call the simplest form of a window function as this:
SELECT *
FROM generate_series(1, 10) AS f(x);
What is the meaning of the AS f(x) clause at the end of this statement? I searched the documentation under both the SELECT command and the window function, and cannot find any explanation for this syntax. I know that the AS portion allows us to rename the column, but I am clueless on the f(x) part.
This is simply a table alias that defines the result of generate_series():
The table reference is f.
The column reference is x.
The as is optional (and I leave it out of table aliases).
So, you could write the select as:
select f.x
This is handy when you want to use the value for other purposes, such as calculations and joins.
I need to select a column only if it exists in table, else it can be set to null.
Sample table below, lets say the marks col is not necessary be there, so need to be checked if it exists
Table1:
name marks
joe 10
john 11
mary 13
Query:
select
name,
marks if it exists else null as marks1 -- pseudo code
from
table1
What should go in line to select marks ?
SQL Doesn't permit that. Your result set has two options:
Static inclusion
All from table or subquery through column-expansion with * and tbl.*
Perhaps this will suit your needs, SELECT * FROM table1; You'll always get that column, if it exists.
try this
IF COL_LENGTH('your_table_name','column_name_you_want_to_select') IS NULL BEGIN
--This means columns does not exist or permission is denied
END
else
--Do whatever you want
It is possible to achieve this in PostgreSQL using JSON. Consider the following SQL query:
SELECT c.relname, c.relkind, c.relispartition
FROM pg_class c
WHERE c.relkind IN ('r','p') AND
c.relnamespace=(SELECT oid FROM pg_namespace WHERE nspname='public')
In PostgreSQL 10+, that will show you the names of all the tables in public schema, including whether they are partitioned and if so whether the table is the partitioned table or one of the partitions of it. However, if you try to run the same query on PostgreSQL 9.6 or earlier, it will fail since the relispartition column does not exist on the pg_class table prior to PostgreSQL 10.
An obvious solution would be to dynamically generate the SQL based on a condition, or have two different versions of the SQL. However, suppose you don't want to do that, you want to have a single query which works on both versions – in other words, you want to conditionally select the relispartition column if it exists.
The core SQL language does not have any facility to conditionally select a column, but it is achievable in PostgreSQL using the row_to_json function, as follows:
SELECT c.relname, c.relkind,
(row_to_json(c)->>'relispartition')::boolean AS relispartition
FROM pg_class c
WHERE c.relkind IN ('r','p') AND
c.relnamespace=(SELECT oid FROM pg_namespace WHERE nspname='public')
If you try running that, you will find on PostgreSQL 10+ the relispartition column is returned as true/false, whereas in pre-10 versions it is NULL. You could make it return false instead of NULL in pre-10 versions by doing COALESCE((row_to_json(c)->>'relispartition')::boolean,false).
What this is doing, is row_to_json(c) turns all the data of the row into JSON. Next, ->>'relispartition' selects the value of the relispartition JSON object key as text, which will be the same as the value of the relispartition column; if there is no such key in the JSON, the result of that will be NULL. Then, ::boolean converts the string value true/false back into a PostgreSQL boolean value. (If your column is of some other type, use the appropriate cast for the type of your column.)
(Obviously this approach will not work in Postgres versions which are too old to have the necessary JSON support – I have tested it works in Postgres 9.4; while I haven't tested it in Postgres 9.3, it probably works there. However, I would not expect it to work in 9.2 or earlier – the ->> operator was added in 9.3, and the JSON type and row_to_json function was added in 9.2. However, I expect few people will need to support those old unsupported versions–9.3 was released in 2013, and 9.2 supported ended in 2017.)
Try this:
IF EXISTS( SELECT 1
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name='your_table' and column_name='your_column') THEN
SELECT your_column as 'some_column'
ELSE
SELECT NULL as 'some_column'
END IF
Replying to an old question yet again but here's my hacky solution to this problem since I don't know how to write SQL functions... yet! %I formats the string as an identifier, and if there is no such table the return value is NULL and the alias is used!
SELECT (SELECT format('%I', 'my_column')
AS my_column_alias
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_name='my_table'
AND column_name='my_column')
FROM source_table
Hope this helps everybody out there =)
I'm currently trying to integrate Sphinx search engine into Python application. The problem is that SphinxQL doesn't support OR clause as common SQL does. There are some hacks to use, like writing expressions in SELECT like this:
SELECT id,(field1 = val1 OR field2 = val2) as expr FROM foo_bar WHERE expr = 1;
However, it doesn't work with strings, because they should be handled using MATCH function. So I decided to divide query into separate subqueries and combine results obtained. Yet there's still a problem of getting a proper META information, especially the total_found field. Sphinx counts it for separate queries, but rows obtained from these queries may intersect and I have no ability to check it (database is large).
I believe there must be a solution. I'm using Sphinxit (SphinxAlchemy has a version conflict with SQLAlchemy I'm using).
Repost from SphinxSearch forum:
I have a table I need to search in with text and numerical columns as well. I need to
write a query with OR condition; found out that there's a way to do it using SELECT
expressions like:
SELECT *, quantity>=50 OR quantity=0 AS mycond FROM table1 WHERE mycond = 1;
Hopelessly it doesn't work with string attributes. This query isn't parsed:
SELECT *, category='foo' OR category='bar' AS mycond FROM table1 WHERE mycond = 1;
Yet this is working in Beta 2.2.3:
SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE category='foo';
What should I do to find count of rows that fit one of conditions, not every one of them?
I can make a few queries and merge obtained items into one list, but I need to now how
much of these rows are in the database now.
For attribute / facet OR'ing, I think you're correct that the only way is to put an expression in the SELECT clause.
For strings, though, check out the documentation on the fulltext query syntax. You can't exactly use the OR keyword, but something like this should work:
SELECT id, name
FROM recipes
WHERE MATCH('(#ingredients chocolate) | (#name cake)')
LIMIT 10;
Such a query as in the title would look like this I guess:
select * from table t where (t.k1='apple' and t.k2='pie') or (t.k1='strawberry' and t.k2='shortcake')
... --10000 more key pairs here
This looks quite verbose to me. Any better alternatives? (Currently using SQLite, might use MYSQL/Oracle.)
You can use for example this on Oracle, i assume that if you use regular concatenate() instead of Oracle's || on other DB, it would work too (as it is simply just a string comparison with the IN list). Note that such query might have suboptimal execution plan.
SELECT *
FROM
TABLE t
WHERE
t.k1||','||t.k2 IN ('apple,pie',
'strawberry,shortcake' );
But if you have your value list stored in other table, Oracle supports also the format below.
SELECT *
FROM
TABLE t
WHERE (t.k1,t.k2) IN ( SELECT x.k1, x.k2 FROM x );
Don't be afraid of verbose syntax. Concatenation tricks can easily mess up the selectivity estimates or even prevent the database from using indexes.
Here is another syntax that may or may not work in your database.
select *
from table t
where (k1, k2) in(
('apple', 'pie')
,('strawberry', 'shortcake')
,('banana', 'split')
,('raspberry', 'vodka')
,('melon', 'shot')
);
A final comment is that if you find yourself wanting to submit 1000 values as filters you should most likely look for a different approach all together :)
select * from table t
where (t.k1+':'+t.k2)
in ('strawberry:shortcake','apple:pie','banana:split','etc:etc')
This will work in most of the cases as it concatenate and finds in as one column
off-course you need to choose a proper separator which will never come in the value of k1 and k2.
for e.g. if k1 and k2 are of type int you can take any character as separator
SELECT * FROM tableName t
WHERE t.k1=( CASE WHEN t.k2=VALUE THEN someValue
WHEN t.k2=otherVALUE THEN someotherValue END)
- SQL FIDDLE