Specify Association Depth in Nhibernate Criteria - nhibernate

Okay, lets say I have A Many-To-Many, Student/Class objects. With the following mapping
HasManyToMany(m => m.Classes)
.Table("StudentClasses")
.LazyLoad()
.Cascade.None();
and query:
return _session.CreateCriteria<Student>()
.Add(Restrictions.Eq("Id", studentId))
.SetCacheable(false)
.UniqueResult<Student>();
My Tables
ID | Student ID | Class StudentId | ClassId
============ =========== ===================
1 | John 1 | Algebra 1 | 1
2 | Sue 2 | Biology 1 | 2
3 | Frank 3 | Speech 2 | 2
4 | Jim 4 | Athletics 2 | 5
5 | Frankenstein 5 | History 5 | 5
What I want is John, with Algebra and Biology This comes, But Biology comes with John and Sue, she in turn gets me Bio and History, which populates sue and Frankenstein. You don't want to get Frankenstein (or anything beyond biology). Also at any point you can start cycling back around in circles.
How do I specify not to populate that deeply? SetMaxRows obviously isn't want I'm looking for, as It cuts down on the total number of rows, I only want to hydrate the first level. I'm particularly confused because I thought LazyLoading would force me to specify exactly what I did want to hydrate

Lazy loading allows you to not have to specify what you want to hydrate. The collections will be populated "lazily" at the time you access them. Your above query will only fetch a single row: John. When you access john.Classes, NHibernate will execute another query behind the scenes to fetch John's classes. Then when you access the biology.Students property, NHibernate will execute another query to populate that collection... and so on.
You definitely do want lazy-loading on this relationship (which is the default, by the way). If you turned lazy loading off, then this would do exactly what you're saying you want to avoid - NHibernate would know that it's not allowed to lazily load these collections, so it would start working to load them as soon as you loaded a student, which could potentially end up loading all of the data in these three tables, and in a very inefficient manner with lots of round-trips to the database.
If you know that all you want is "John, with Algebra and Biology", then you should add these lines to your query:
.SetFetchMode("Classes", FetchMode.Eager)
.SetResultTransformer(Transformers.DistinctRootEntity)
The SetFetchMode tells NHibernate to use left outer joins to pre-populate the student.Classes collection. The DistintRootEntity tells NHibernate to not return the duplicate students that will be generated by the left outer join.

Related

How to make this very complicated query from three connected models with Django ORM?

Good day, everyone. Hope you're doing well. I'm a Django newbie, trying to learn the basics of RESTful development while helping in a small app project. We currently want some of our models to update accordingly based on the data we submit to them, by using the Django ORM and the fields that some of them share wih OneToMany relationsips. Currently, there's a really difficult query that I must do for one of my fields to update automatically given that filter. First, let me explain the models. This are not real, but a doppleganger that should work the same:
First we have a Report model that is a teacher's report of a student:
class Report(models.Model):
status = models.CharField(max_length=32, choices=Statuses.choices, default=Statuses.created,)
student = models.ForeignKey(Student, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
headroom_teacher = models.ForeignKey(TeacherStaff, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
# Various dates
results_date = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
report_created = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
.
#Other fields that don't matter
Here we have two related models, which are student and headroom_teacher. It's not necessary to show their models, but their relationship with the next two models is really important. We also have an Exams model:
class Exams(models.Model):
student = models.ForeignKey(student, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
headroom_teacher = models.ForeignKey(TeacherStaff, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
# Various dates
results_date = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
initial_exam_date = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
.
#Other fields that don't matter
As you can see, the purpose of this app is akin to reporting on the performance of students after completing some exams, and every Report is made by a teacher for specific student on how he did on those exams. Finally we have a final model called StudentMood that aims to show how should an student be feeling depending on the status of their exams:
class StudentMood(models.Model):
report = models.ForeignKey(Report, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
student_status = models.CharField(
max_length=32, choices=Status.choices,
default=None, null=True, blank=False)
headroom_teacher = models.ForeignKey(TeacherStaff, on_delete=models.CASCADE,)
And with these three models is that we arrive to the crux of the issue. One of our possible student_status options is called Anxious for results, which we believe a student will feel during the time when he already has done an exam and is waiting for the results.
I want to automatically set my student_status to that, using a custom manager that takes into account the date that the report has been done or the day the data has been entered. I believe this can be done by making a query taking into account initial_exam_date.
I already have my custom manager set up, and the only thing missing is this query. I have no choice but to do it with Django's ORM. However, I've come up with an approximate raw SQL query, that I'm not sure if it's ok:
SELECT student_mood.id AS student_mood_id FROM
school_student_mood LEFT JOIN
school_reports report
ON student_mood.report_id = report.id AND student_mood.headroom_teacher_id = report.headroom_teacher_id
JOIN school_exams exams
ON report.headroom_teacher_id = exams.headroom_teacher_id
AND report.student_id = exams.student_id
AND exams.results_date > date where the student_mood or report data is entered, I guess
And that's what I've come to ask for help. Could someone shed some light into how to transfer this into a single query?
Without having an environment setup or really knowing exactly what you want out of the data. This is a good start.
Generally speaking, the Django ORM is not great for these types of queries, and trying to use select_related or prefetches results in really complex and inefficient queries.
I've found the best way to achieve these types of queries in Django is to break each piece of your puzzle down into a query that returns a "list" of ids that you can then use in a subquery.
Then you keep working down until you have your final output
from django.db.models import Subquery
# Grab the students of any exams where the result_date is greater than a specific date.
student_exam_subquery = Exam.objects.filter(
results_date__gt=timezone.now()
).values_list('student__id', flat=True)
# Grab all the student moods related to reports that relate to our "exams" where the student is anxious
student_mood_subquery = StudentMood.objects.filter(
student_status='anxious',
reports__student__in=Subquery(student_exam_subquery)
).values_list('report__id', flat=True)
# Get the final list of students
Student.objects.values_list('id', flat=True).filter(
reports__id__in=Subquery(student_mood_subquery)
)
Now I doubt this will work out of the box, but it's really to give you an understanding of how you might go about solving this in a way that is readable to future devs and the most efficient (db wise).
So, the issue I was running into, is that the school has exam cycles each period, and it was difficult to retrieve only the students' report for this cycle. Let's assume we have the following database:
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
| Student | Report ID | StudentMood ID | Exam Cycle Status | Initial Exam Date | Report created a |
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
| Student 1 | 1 | 1 | Done | 01/01/2020 | 02/01/2020 |
| Student 2 | 2 | 2 | Done | 01/01/2020 | 02/01/2020 |
| Student 1 | 3 | 3 | On Going | 02/06/2020 | 01/01/2020 |
| Student 2 | 4 | 4 | On Going | 02/06/2020 | 01/01/2020 |
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
And Obviously, I wanted to limit my query to just this cycle, like this:
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
| Student | Report ID | StudentMood ID | Exam Cycle Status | Initial Exam Date | Report created a |
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
| Student 1 | 3 | 3 | On Going | 02/06/2020 | 01/01/2020 |
| Student 2 | 4 | 4 | On Going | 02/06/2020 | 01/01/2020 |
+-----------+-----------+----------------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------+
Now, your answer, trent, was really useful, but I'm still having issues retrieving in the shape of the above:
qs_exams = Exams.objects.filter(initial_exam_date__gt=now()).values_list('student__id', flat=True)
qs_report = Report.objects.filter(student__id__in=qs_exams).values_list('id', flat=True)
qs_mood = StudentMood.objects.select_related('report') \
.filter(report__id__in=qs_report).order_by('report__student_id', '-created').distinct()
But this query is still giving me all the StudentMoods throughout the school year. Sooooo, any ideas?

SQL - Tracking student exam records as they move between schools

I'd like to pick some of your glorious minds for an optimal solution to my dilemma.
Scenario:
Schools have children and children take tests.
The tests point to the child, not the school.
If the child moves school, the test records are taken to the new school and the previous school has no record of the test being done as they are linked to the child.
Obviously, this isn't ideal and is the result of the database not being designed with this in mind. What would the correct course of action be; I’ve currently identified the 3 possibilities listed below which would solve the current problem. However, i cannot be sure which is best for the issue at hand - and if any better solutions exist.
Have each test store the school & student within the test records (requiring current records to be updated & increasing the size of the database)
Create a new child record, duplicating the existing data for the new school with a new ID so the test remains linked to the previous school (complicating the ability to identify previous test scores)
Separately keep track of moves to other schools, then use this additional table to identify current and previous using the timestamps (increased complexity and computational requirements)
EDIT:
So i tried to use a basic example, but requests for the task at hand have been requested.
Here's the DB Schema for the tables (simplified for problem, note: Postnatal is not important):
Patients: ID, MidwifeID, TeamID
Midwives: ID
Groups: ID
GroupsMidwives: MidwifeID, GroupsID
PatientObservations: ID, MidwifeID, PatientID
Using a query as follows:
SELECT Some Information
from Postnatals
JOIN Midwives on Postnatals.MidwifeID = Midwives.ID
JOIN Patients on Patients.PatientID = Postnatals.PatientID
JOIN GroupsMidwives on GroupsMidwives.MidwifeID = Midwives.ID
JOIN Groups on Groups.ID = GroupsMidwives.GroupID
JOIN PatientObservations on PatientObservations.PatientID =
Postnatals.PatientID
WHERE groups.Name = ?
*some extra checks*
GROUP BY Midwives.Firstname, Midwives.Surname, Midwives.ID
However, in the event that a midwife is moved to a different team, the data associated with the previous team is now owned by the newly assigned team. As described in the example detailed previously.
Thus a modification (which modification is yet to be realised) is required to make the data submitted - prior to a team change - assigned to the previous team, as of current, because of the way the records are owned by the midwife, this is not possible.
You should below suggestion as per you concern.
Step 1 ) You need to create School Master Table
ID | School | IsActive
1 | ABC | 1
2 | XYZ | 1
Step 2 ) You need to create Children Master having school id as foreign key
ID | School | Children Name| IsActive
1 | 2 | Mak | 1
2 | 2 | Jak | 1
Step 3 ) You need to create test table having children id as foreign key
ID | Children_id | Test Name | IsActive
1 | 2 | Math | 1
2 | 2 | Eng | 1
Now whenever child moves school then make child record inactive and create another active record with new school. This will help you to bifurcate the old test and new test.
do let me know in case morehelp required

Check if a value exists in the child-parent tree

I'm creating a simple directory listing page where you can specify what kind of thing you want to list in the directory e.g. a person or a company.
Each user has an UserTypeID and there is a dbo.UserType lookup table. The dbo.UserType lookup table is like this:
UserTypeID | UserTypeParentID | Name
1 NULL Person
2 NULL Company
3 2 IT
4 3 Accounting Software
In the dbo.Users table we have records like this:
UserID | UserTypeID | Name
1 1 Jenny Smith
2 1 Malcolm Brown
3 2 Wall Mart
4 3 Microsoft
5 4 Sage
My SQL (so far) is very simple: (excuse the pseudo-code style)
DECLARE #UserTypeID int
SELECT
*
FROM
dbo.Users u
INNER JOIN
dbo.UserType ut
WHERE
ut.UserTypeID = #UserTypeID
The problem is here is that when people want to search for companies they will enter in '2' as the UserTypeID. But both Microsoft and Sage won't show up because their UserTypeIDs are 3 and 4 respectively. But its the final UserTypeParentID which tells me that they're both Companies.
How could I rewrite the SQL to ask it to return to return records where the UserTypeID = #UserTypeID or where its final UserTypeParentID is also equal to #UserTypeID. Or am I going about this the wrong way?
Schema Change
I would suggest you to break it down this schema a little bit more, to make your queries and life simpler, with this current schema you will end up writing a recursive query every time you want to get simplest data from your Users table, and trust me you dont want to do this to yourself.
I would break down this schema of these tables as follow:
dbo.Users
UserID | UserName
1 | Jenny
2 | Microsoft
3 | Sage
dbo.UserTypes_Type
TypeID | TypeName
1 | Person
2 | IT
3 | Compnay
4 | Accounting Software
dbo.UserTypes
UserID | TypeID
1 | 1
2 | 2
2 | 3
3 | 2
3 | 3
3 | 4
You say that you are "creating" this - excellent because you have the opportunity to reconsider your whole approach.
Dealing with hierarchical data in a relational database is problematic because it is not designed for it - the model you choose to represent it will have a huge impact on the performance and ease of construction of your queries.
You have opted for an Adjacently List model which is great for inserts (and deletes) but a bugger for selects because the query has to effectively reconstruct the hierarchy path. By the way an Adjacency List is the model almost everyone goes for on their first attempt.
Everything is a trade off so you should decide what queries will be most common - selects (and updates) or inserts (and deletes). See this question for starters. Also, since SQL Server 2008, there is a native HeirachyID datatype (see this) which may be of assistance.
Of course, you could store your data in an XML file (in SQL Server or not) which is designed for hierarchical data.

How to return N records after given record ID in an Active Record scope?

Given an Active Record scope, how to return N records after the given record?
For example, consider we have a list of urban areas sorted by population:
Active record scope:
Area.ordered_by_population
Returned rows:
ID | Area
------------
9 | Tokyo
2 | Jakarta
7 | Seoul
1 | Delhi
8 | Shanghai
4 | Manila
3 | Karachi
5 | New York City
6 | São Paulo
Now I need to return 3 next records after ID 8 (Shanghai). So the result will be:
4 | Manila
3 | Karachi
5 | New York City
The rails call will look like this:
Area.ordered_by_population.records_after_id(id: 8, count: 3)
So, how do I write this records_after_id method?
Performance requirement: the approach should handle db tables with 100K records and be relatively fast (I target 1ms on modern laptop).
Update
Important nuance about this problem noted by Beerlington. I can not use pagination solution for this, unfortunately. I need to return rows after given record. It must by relative to a record.
The records_after_id method can be defined as follows
module Pager
def records_after_id(id:, count:)
relation = self.dup
# perform the query and find the index of the id
offset = relation.pluck(:id).find_index(id)
# OFFSET LIMIT query starting +1 after the found id
relation.offset(offset + 1).limit(count)
end
end
then you can call it as follows
Area.ordered_by_population.extending(Pager).records_after_id(id: 8, count: 3)
as a Relation is returned it can be extended, like to sum the population of the next 3 records
Area.ordered_by_population
.extending(Pager)
.records_after_id(id: 8, count: 3)
.sum(:population)
more info at http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/QueryMethods.html#method-i-extending
I might be misunderstanding the problem, but it sounds like what you want is pagination, and you don't actually care about the ID. I've used the Kaminari gem for this in the past with success. You can do it without the gem too by just changing the limit and offset in your query, but the gem makes managing that a little more user friendly.
With Kaminari:
Area.ordered_by_population.page(1).per(8)
Area.ordered_by_population.page(2).per(8)
Area.ordered_by_population.page(3).per(8)
Without Kaminari:
Area.ordered_by_population.limit(10).offset(0)
Area.ordered_by_population.limit(10).offset(10)
Area.ordered_by_population.limit(10).offset(20)

Multiple conflicting facts in database / data warehouse

Our organization is currently in the process of building a new data warehouse. We are actually able to use some techniques borrowed from the DW community such as ETL processing to conform data, de-normalized dimensions in the "kimbal" style, etc. etc. Overall, data warehousing is still fairly new to our organization, but we are learning the concepts as we go along.
The problem: We have multiple sources of data, with often conflicting sources of facts. For example, we have a Master Person Index, where we use a score-based matching algorithm during ETL to match an inbound person to an existing person, so even if the inbound record doesn't exactly match, we can score based on other things like zip code radius.
Here's the question: What is the standard way to handle multiple versions of a fact from two or more sources?
I understand one of the main ideas of the data warehouse is to keep a running history of any fact, which we are doing. That's all fine and dandy when a record is being maintained by one inbound source, we keep the history of that fact over time. The problem occurs when two different sources perhaps updating on a daily basis have two different facts, e.g. source A says the name is Mary Smith, source B says the name is Mary Jane changing this value every day! Based on the matching algorithm we're confident it's the same person, but due to our history style table, it basically keeps flopping back and forth to both names every day because it is reading the name as a "change" from each data source.
An example table:
first_name last_name source last_updated
Mary Smith A 5/2/12 1:00am
Mary Jane B 5/2/12 2:00am
Mary Smith A 5/3/12 1:00am
Mary Jane B 5/3/12 2:00am
Mary Smith A 5/4/12 1:00am
Mary Jane B 5/4/12 2:00am
...
Have one table that stores your external data:
id | first_name | last_name | source | external_unique_id | import_date
----+------------+-----------+--------+--------------------+-------------
1 | Mary | Smith | A | abcdefg123 | 5/2/12 1:00am
2 | Mary | Jane | B | 1234567abc | 5/2/12 2:00am
Then have a second table that contains your cleaned data:
id | first_name | last_name
----+------------+-----------
1 | Mary | Jane-Smith (or whatever)
Then have a mapping table between the two.
local_person_id | foreign_person_id
-----------------+-------------------
1 | 1
1 | 2
Or something broadly similar.
The objective is to load the facts from your source once, and keep them.
Then use your fuzzy logic to relate them to master records somewhere. Which you only need to do when new facts are loaded or old facts are changed.
Still, you have the choice on what last_name to use. But that can be almost arbitrary in the absence of determining data. For example : Whichever pick the last name from the fact loaded most recently.
You can still quickly and simply relate the master to the child facts, to their sources, and to their corresponding data. But you have a unified entity in your warehouse to hang these external facts on.
One thing about terminology - What you've listed are "Attributes", not "Facts". A fact is a measure that you take on a set of dimensional Attributes. (for example, an order that this "person" places, or the dollar value of this customer's recent order, etc). In this case, you have multiple sources of dimensional attributes, each one considered the "same".
#Dems method is one way (and a good one) to keep your cleaned data separate from your staging / operational data set.
Another, if you need to have access to both data sets in reporting, while still keeping a "clean" version, would be to put all the attributes on your person/customer dimension:
FIRST_NAME
LAST_NAME
SOURCE1_FIRST_NAME
SOURCE1_LAST_NAME
SOURCE2_FIRST_NAME
SOURCE2_LAST_NAME
For reports on measures where the user community is expecting to see the name from Source 2, you can use the source2 attribute. For people expecting source 1, use that. For people looking for the results of the processing which "conforms" the name, use the main attribute.