I am creating a database for the first time using Postgres 9.3 on MacOSX.
Let's say I have table A and B. A starts off as empty and B as filled. I would like the number of entries in column all_names in table B to equal the number for each names in table A like table B below. Thus names should contain each unique entry from all_names and number its count. I am not used to the syntax, yet, so I do not really know how to go about it. The birthday column is redundant.
Table A
names | number
------+--------
Carl | 3
Bill | 4
Jen | 2
Table B
all_names | birthday
-----------+------------
Carl | 17/03/1980
Carl | 22/08/1994
Carl | 04/09/1951
Bill | 02/12/2003
Bill | 11/03/1975
Bill | 04/06/1986
Bill | 08/07/2005
Jen | 05/03/2009
Jen | 01/04/1945
Would this be the correct way to go about it?
insert into a (names, number)
select b.all_names, count(b.all_names)
from b
group by b.all_names;
Answer to original question
Postgres allows set-returning functions (SRF) to multiply rows. generate_series() is your friend:
INSERT INTO b (all_names, birthday)
SELECT names, current_date -- AS birthday ??
FROM (SELECT names, generate_series(1, number) FROM a);
Since the introduction of LATERAL in Postgres 9.3 you can do stick to standard SQL: the SRF moves from the SELECT to the FROM list:
INSERT INTO b (all_names, birthday)
SELECT a.names, current_date -- AS birthday ??
FROM a, generate_series(1, a.number) AS rn
LATERAL is implicit here, as explained in the manual:
LATERAL can also precede a function-call FROM item, but in this case
it is a noise word, because the function expression can refer to
earlier FROM items in any case.
Reverse operation
The above is the reverse operation (approximately) of a simple aggregate count():
INSERT INTO a (name, number)
SELECT all_names, count(*)
FROM b
GROUP BY 1;
... which fits your updated question.
Note a subtle difference between count(*) and count(all_names). The former counts all rows, no matter what, while the latter only counts rows where all_names IS NOT NULL. If your column all_names is defined as NOT NULL, both return the same, but count(*) is a bit shorter and faster.
About GROUP BY 1:
GROUP BY + CASE statement
Related
Let's assume I run the following in SQLite:
CREATE TABLE my_table
(
id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
NAME VARCHAR(20),
date DATE,
num INTEGER,
important VARCHAR(20)
);
INSERT INTO my_table (NAME, date, num, important)
VALUES ('A', '2000-01-01', 10, 'Important 1');
INSERT INTO my_table (NAME, date, num, important)
VALUES ('A', '2000-02-01', 20, 'Important 2');
INSERT INTO my_table (NAME, date, num, important)
VALUES ('A', '1999-12-01', 30, 'Important 3');
The table looks like this:
id
NAME
date
num
important
1
A
2000-01-01
10
Important 1
2
A
2000-02-01
20
Important 2
3
A
1999-12-01
30
Important 3
If I execute:
SELECT id
FROM my_table
GROUP BY NAME;
the results are:
+----+
| id |
+----+
| 1 |
+----+
If I execute:
SELECT id, MAX(date)
FROM my_table
GROUP BY NAME;
The results are:
+----+------------+
| id | max(date) |
+----+------------+
| 2 | 2000-02-01 |
+----+------------+
And if I execute:
SELECT id,
MAX(date),
MAX(num)
FROM my_table
GROUP BY NAME;
The results are:
+----+------------+----------+
| id | max(date) | max(num) |
+----+------------+----------+
| 3 | 2000-02-01 | 30 |
+----+------------+----------+
My question is, is this well defined? Specifically, am I guaranteed to always get id = 2 when doing the second query (with the single Max(date) aggregate), or is this just a side effect of how SQLite is likely ordering the table to grab the Max before grouping?
I ask this because I specifically do want id = 2. I will then execute another query that selects the important field for that row (for my actual problem the first query would return multiple ids and I'd select all important fields for all those rows at once.
Additionally, this is all happening in an iOS Core Data query, so I'm not able to do more complicated subqueries. If I knew that the ordering of a GROUP BY is defined by an aggregate then I'd feel pretty confident my queries wouldn't break (until Apple moves away from SQLite for Core Data).
Thanks!
From the Sqlite manual
2.5. Bare columns in an aggregate query
The usual case is that all column names in an aggregate query are either arguments to aggregate functions or else appear in the GROUP BY clause. A result column which contains a column name that is not within an aggregate function and that does not appear in the GROUP BY clause (if one exists) is called a "bare" column. Example:
SELECT a, b, sum(c) FROM tab1 GROUP BY a;
In the query above, the "a" column is part of the GROUP BY clause and so each row of the output contains one of the distinct values for "a". The "c" column is contained within the sum() aggregate function and so that output column is the sum of all "c" values in rows that have the same value for "a". But what is the result of the bare column "b"? The answer is that the "b" result will be the value for "b" in one of the input rows that form the aggregate. The problem is that you usually do not know which input row is used to compute "b", and so in many cases the value for "b" is undefined.
Special processing occurs when the aggregate function is either min() or max(). Example:
SELECT a, b, max(c) FROM tab1 GROUP BY a;
When the min() or max() aggregate functions are used in an aggregate query, all bare columns in the result set take values from the input row which also contains the minimum or maximum. So in the query above, the value of the "b" column in the output will be the value of the "b" column in the input row that has the largest "c" value. There is still an ambiguity if two or more of the input rows have the same minimum or maximum value or if the query contains more than one min() and/or max() aggregate function. Only the built-in min() and max() functions work this way.
If bare columns appear in an aggregate query that lacks a GROUP BY clause, and the number of input rows is zero, then the values of the bare columns are arbitrary. For example, in this query:
SELECT count(*), b FROM tab1;
If the tab1 table contains no rows (of count(*) evaluates to 0) then the bare column "b" will have an arbitrary and meaningless value.
Most other SQL database engines disallow bare columns. If you include a bare column in a query, other database engines will usually raise an error. The ability to include bare columns in a query is an SQLite-specific extension.
https://www.sqlite.org/lang_select.html
am I guaranteed to always get id = 2 when doing the second query (with
the single Max(date) aggregate), or is this just a side effect of how
SQLite is likely ordering the table to grab the Max before grouping?
Yes, the result that you get is guaranteed because it is documented in Bare columns in an aggregate query.
The value for the column id that you get is from the row that contains the max date.
Suppose there is a table which has several identical rows. I can copy the distinct values by
SELECT DISTINCT * INTO DESTINATIONTABLE FROM SOURCETABLE
but if the table has a column named value and for the sake of simplicity its value is 1 for one particular item in that table. Now that row has another 9 duplicates. So the summation of the value column for that particular item is 10. Now I want to remove the 9 duplicates(or copy the distinct value as I mentioned) and for that item now the value should show 10 and not 1. How can this be achieved?
item| value
----+----------------
A | 1
A | 1
A | 1
A | 1
B | 1
B | 1
I want to show this as below
item| value
----+----------------
A | 4
B | 2
Thanks in advance
You can try to use SUM and group by
SELECT item,SUM(value) value
FROM T
GROUP BY item
SQLfiddle:http://sqlfiddle.com/#!18/fac26/1
[Results]:
| item | value |
|------|-------|
| A | 4 |
| B | 2 |
Broadly speaking, you can just us a sum and a GROUP BY clause.
Something like:
SELECT column1, SUM(column2) AS Count
FROM SOURCETABLE
GROUP BY column1
Here it is in action: Sum + Group By
Since your table probably isn't just two columns of data, here is a slightly more complex example showing how to do this to a larger table: SQL Fiddle
Note that I've selected my rows individually so that I can access the necessary data, rather than using
SELECT *
And I have achieved this result without the need for selecting data into another table.
EDIT 2:
Further to your comments, it sounds like you want to alter the actual data in your table rather than just querying it. There may be a more elegant way to do this, but a simple way use the above query to populate a temporary table, delete the contents of the existing table, then move all the data back. To do this in my existing example:
WITH MyQuery AS (
SELECT name, type, colour, price, SUM(number) AS number
FROM MyTable
GROUP BY name, type, colour, price
)
SELECT * INTO MyTable2 FROM MyQuery;
DELETE FROM MyTable;
INSERT INTO MyTable(name, type, colour, price, number)
SELECT * FROM MyTable2;
DROP TABLE MyTable2;
WARNING: If youre going to try this, please use a development environment first (i.e one you don't mind breaking!) to ensure it does exactly what you want it to do. It's imperative that your initial query captures ALL the data you want.
Here is the SQL Fiddle of this example in action: SQL Fiddle
I'm selecting data from multiple tables and I also need to get maximum "timestamp" on those tables. I will need that to create custom cache control.
tbl_name tbl_surname
id | name id | surname
--------- ------------
0 | John 0 | Doe
1 | Jane 1 | Tully
... ...
I have following query:
SELECT name, surname FROM tbl_name, tbl_surname WHERE tbl_name.id = tbl_surname.id
and I need to add following info to result set:
SELECT MAX(ora_rowscn) FROM (SELECT ora_rowscn FROM tbl_name
UNION ALL
SELECT ora_rowscn FROM tbl_surname);
I was trying to use UNION but I get error - mixing group and not single group data - or something like that, I know why I cannot use the union.
I don't want to split this into 2 calls, because I need the timestamp of the current snapshot I took from DB for my cache management. And between select and the call for MAX the DB could change.
Here is result I want:
John | Doe | 123456
Jane | Tully | 123456
where 123456 is approximate time of last change (insert, update, delete) of tables tbl_name and tbl_surname.
I have read only access to DB, so I cannot create triggers, stored procedures, extra tables etc...
Thanks for any suggestions.
EDIT: The value *ora_rowscn* is assigned per block of rows. So in one table this value can differ per row. I need the maximal value from both (all) tables involved in query.
Try:
SELECT name,
surname,
max(greatest(tbl_name.ora_rowscn, tbl_surname.ora_rowscn)) over () as max_rowscn
FROM tbl_name, tbl_surname
WHERE tbl_name.id = tbl_surname.id
There's no need to aggregate here - just include both ora_rowscn values in your query and take the max:
SELECT
n.name,
n.ora_rowscn as n_ora_rowscn,
s.surname,
s.ora_rowscn as s_ora_rowscn,
greatest(n.ora_rowscn, s.ora_rowscn) as last_ora_rowscn
FROM tbl_name n
join tbl_surname s on n.id = s.id
BTW, I've replaced your old-style joins with ANSI style - better readable, IMHO.
I'm using Postgres and cannot manage to get the last record of my table:
my_query = client.query("SELECT timestamp,value,card from my_table");
How can I do that knowning that timestamp is a unique identifier of the record ?
If under "last record" you mean the record which has the latest timestamp value, then try this:
my_query = client.query("
SELECT TIMESTAMP,
value,
card
FROM my_table
ORDER BY TIMESTAMP DESC
LIMIT 1
");
you can use
SELECT timestamp, value, card
FROM my_table
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 1
assuming you want also to sort by timestamp?
Easy way: ORDER BY in conjunction with LIMIT
SELECT timestamp, value, card
FROM my_table
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 1;
However, LIMIT is not standard and as stated by Wikipedia, The SQL standard's core functionality does not explicitly define a default sort order for Nulls.. Finally, only one row is returned when several records share the maximum timestamp.
Relational way:
The typical way of doing this is to check that no row has a higher timestamp than any row we retrieve.
SELECT timestamp, value, card
FROM my_table t1
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM my_table t2
WHERE t2.timestamp > t1.timestamp
);
It is my favorite solution, and the one I tend to use. The drawback is that our intent is not immediately clear when having a glimpse on this query.
Instructive way: MAX
To circumvent this, one can use MAX in the subquery instead of the correlation.
SELECT timestamp, value, card
FROM my_table
WHERE timestamp = (
SELECT MAX(timestamp)
FROM my_table
);
But without an index, two passes on the data will be necessary whereas the previous query can find the solution with only one scan. That said, we should not take performances into consideration when designing queries unless necessary, as we can expect optimizers to improve over time. However this particular kind of query is quite used.
Show off way: Windowing functions
I don't recommend doing this, but maybe you can make a good impression on your boss or something ;-)
SELECT DISTINCT
first_value(timestamp) OVER w,
first_value(value) OVER w,
first_value(card) OVER w
FROM my_table
WINDOW w AS (ORDER BY timestamp DESC);
Actually this has the virtue of showing that a simple query can be expressed in a wide variety of ways (there are several others I can think of), and that picking one or the other form should be done according to several criteria such as:
portability (Relational/Instructive ways)
efficiency (Relational way)
expressiveness (Easy/Instructive way)
If your table has no Id such as integer auto-increment, and no timestamp, you can still get the last row of a table with the following query.
select * from <tablename> offset ((select count(*) from <tablename>)-1)
For example, that could allow you to search through an updated flat file, find/confirm where the previous version ended, and copy the remaining lines to your table.
The last inserted record can be queried using this assuming you have the "id" as the primary key:
SELECT timestamp,value,card FROM my_table WHERE id=(select max(id) from my_table)
Assuming every new row inserted will use the highest integer value for the table's id.
If you accept a tip, create an id in this table like serial. The default of this field will be:
nextval('table_name_field_seq'::regclass).
So, you use a query to call the last register. Using your example:
pg_query($connection, "SELECT currval('table_name_field_seq') AS id;
I hope this tip helps you.
To get the last row,
Get Last row in the sorted order: In case the table has a column specifying time/primary key,
Using LIMIT clause
SELECT * FROM USERS ORDER BY CREATED_TIME DESC LIMIT 1;
Using FETCH clause - Reference
SELECT * FROM USERS ORDER BY CREATED_TIME FETCH FIRST ROW ONLY;
Get Last row in the rows insertion order: In case the table has no columns specifying time/any unique identifiers
Using CTID system column, where ctid represents the physical location of the row in a table - Reference
SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE CTID = (SELECT MAX(CTID) FROM USERS);
Consider the following table,
userid |username | createdtime |
1 | A | 1535012279455 |
2 | B | 1535042279423 | //as per created time, this is the last row
3 | C | 1535012279443 |
4 | D | 1535012212311 |
5 | E | 1535012254634 | //as per insertion order, this is the last row
The query 1 and 2 returns,
userid |username | createdtime |
2 | B | 1535042279423 |
while 3 returns,
userid |username | createdtime |
5 | E | 1535012254634 |
Note : On updating an old row, it removes the old row and updates the data and inserts as a new row in the table. So using the following query returns the tuple on which the data modification is done at the latest.
Now updating a row, using
UPDATE USERS SET USERNAME = 'Z' WHERE USERID='3'
the table becomes as,
userid |username | createdtime |
1 | A | 1535012279455 |
2 | B | 1535042279423 |
4 | D | 1535012212311 |
5 | E | 1535012254634 |
3 | Z | 1535012279443 |
Now the query 3 returns,
userid |username | createdtime |
3 | Z | 1535012279443 |
Use the following
SELECT timestamp, value, card
FROM my_table
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 1
These are all good answers but if you want an aggregate function to do this to grab the last row in the result set generated by an arbitrary query, there's a standard way to do this (taken from the Postgres wiki, but should work in anything conforming reasonably to the SQL standard as of a decade or more ago):
-- Create a function that always returns the last non-NULL item
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.last_agg ( anyelement, anyelement )
RETURNS anyelement LANGUAGE SQL IMMUTABLE STRICT AS $$
SELECT $2;
$$;
-- And then wrap an aggregate around it
CREATE AGGREGATE public.LAST (
sfunc = public.last_agg,
basetype = anyelement,
stype = anyelement
);
It's usually preferable to do select ... limit 1 if you have a reasonable ordering, but this is useful if you need to do this within an aggregate and would prefer to avoid a subquery.
See also this question for a case where this is the natural answer.
The column name plays an important role in the descending order:
select <COLUMN_NAME1, COLUMN_NAME2> from >TABLENAME> ORDER BY <COLUMN_NAME THAT MENTIONS TIME> DESC LIMIT 1;
For example: The below-mentioned table(user_details) consists of the column name 'created_at' that has timestamp for the table.
SELECT userid, username FROM user_details ORDER BY created_at DESC LIMIT 1;
In Oracle SQL,
select * from (select row_number() over (order by rowid desc) rn, emp.* from emp) where rn=1;
select * from table_name LIMIT 1;
This is staight forward I believe:
I have a table with 30,000 rows. When I SELECT DISTINCT 'location' FROM myTable it returns 21,000 rows, about what I'd expect, but it only returns that one column.
What I want is to move those to a new table, but the whole row for each match.
My best guess is something like SELECT * from (SELECT DISTINCT 'location' FROM myTable) or something like that, but it says I have a vague syntax error.
Is there a good way to grab the rest of each DISTINCT row and move it to a new table all in one go?
SELECT * FROM myTable GROUP BY `location`
or if you want to move to another table
CREATE TABLE foo AS SELECT * FROM myTable GROUP BY `location`
Distinct means for the entire row returned. So you can simply use
SELECT DISTINCT * FROM myTable GROUP BY 'location'
Using Distinct on a single column doesn't make a lot of sense. Let's say I have the following simple set
-id- -location-
1 store
2 store
3 home
if there were some sort of query that returned all columns, but just distinct on location, which row would be returned? 1 or 2? Should it just pick one at random? Because of this, DISTINCT works for all columns in the result set returned.
Well, first you need to decide what you really want returned.
The problem is that, presumably, for some of the location values in your table there are different values in the other columns even when the location value is the same:
Location OtherCol StillOtherCol
Place1 1 Fred
Place1 89 Fred
Place1 1 Joe
In that case, which of the three rows do you want to select? When you talk about a DISTINCT Location, you're condensing those three rows of different data into a single row, there's no meaning to moving the original rows from the original table into a new table since those original rows no longer exist in your DISTINCT result set. (If all the other columns are always the same for a given Location, your problem is easier: Just SELECT DISTINCT * FROM YourTable).
If you don't care which values come from the other columns you can use a (bad, IMHO) MySQL extension to SQL and do:
SELECT * FROM YourTable GROUP BY Location
which will give a result set with one row per location and values for the other columns derived from the original data in an undefined fashion.
Multiple rows with identical values in all columns don't have any sense. OK - the question might be a way to correct exactly that situation.
Considering this table, with id being the PK:
kram=# select * from foba;
id | no | name
----+----+---------------
2 | 1 | a
3 | 1 | b
4 | 2 | c
5 | 2 | a,b,c,d,e,f,g
you may extract a sample for every single no (:=location) by grouping over that column, and selecting the row with minimum PK (for example):
SELECT * FROM foba WHERE id IN (SELECT min (id) FROM foba GROUP BY no);
id | no | name
----+----+------
2 | 1 | a
4 | 2 | c