Why is the output different in SQL Server and same in Oracle? - sql

Why is the output of below two queries is different in SQL Server and same in Oracle ?
SELECT 20.0/-2.0/5
SELECT 20/(-2.0)/5

I'm not agree with your statement that the output should be the same.
If you ask me what 20/-2/5 much output, I will answer you that it could output -2 or -50, depends on implementation details.
In Oracle, the only thing you know is that operators '*' and '/' are evaluated before '+' and '-'. But that's all. I don't find any documentation on the priority gives to operator '*' and '/' between themselves.
Since the two query gives -2, you can assume that the parenthesis are left over, and the calculation is made from left to right.
In SQL Server, the docs specified that
When two operators in an expression have the same operator precedence
level, they are evaluated left to right based on their position in the
expression.
So this computation is conform to the specs :
20/2/5 = (20/2)/5 = 2
Now add the minus sign
20/-2/5 = 20/(-2/5) = -50
Add parenthesis again
20/(-2)/5 = (20/-2)/5 = -2
So not only the parenthesis change the order, but the minus sign too.
In fact, the result should be considered as Undefined, and you can't rely on it.
Add some parenthesis for having a well defined result and prevent headache.

Related

Why would SQL truncate the right-side of a string when using the right function?

I have a database with MANY out-of-date file locations. The difference between the out-of-date file locations and the correct locations is simply the left-side of the address. So, I am attempting to take the left-side off and replace it with the correct string. But, I can't get there because my query is altering the right-side of the address.
This query is made using "vfpoledb."
SELECT RIGHT(LINK,LEN(LINK)-8) ,LEN(LINK)-8,RIGHT(LINK,77),LINK
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE DOCLBL = "V46145002A"
This query returns the following:
EXP1:
\SHARES\DATA\QMS\QMS DATA\TRACKING FILES\REMOTEENTRIES\V46145 216447
EXP2:
77
EXP3:
\SHARES\DATA\QMS\QMS DATA\TRACKING FILES\REMOTEENTRIES\V46145 216447-002A.PDF
LINK:
\\SERVER\SHARES\DATA\QMS\QMS DATA\TRACKING FILES\REMOTEENTRIES\V46145 216447-002A.PDF
I don't understand why EXP1 and EXP3 are giving different results. EXP3 is what I'm looking for EXP1 to return. If I could get that, I could append the correct left-hand-side and create an update query to fix everything.
Edit:
Even when changing the query to:
SELECT RIGHT(LINK,LEN(LINK)) ,LEN(LINK)-8,RIGHT(LINK,77),LINK
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE DOCLBL = "V46145002A"
The link still cuts off at the same point, which is odd because expression_3 which still uses Right(), but manually provides the length instead of using Len() does not do this.
Furthermore, it seems that when I run the query to include all results:
SELECT RIGHT(LINK,LEN(LINK)) ,LEN(LINK)-8,RIGHT(LINK,77),LINK
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE 1=1
All values returned by Exp1 are equal in length even though Exp2 and Link are different in size.
So back to the problem, how can I run a query to replace the left-side with the correct server if I can't separate them out?
OK this is tricky, I did some Foxpro 20 years ago but don't have it to hand.
Your SELECT statement looks OK to me. In the comments under the question Thomas G created this DbFiddle which shows that in a 'normal' dbms, your SELECT statement gives the result you are expecting: https://dbfiddle.uk/?rdbms=sqlserver_2017&fiddle=37047d2b7efb91aaa029fa0fb98eea24
So the problem must be something FoxPro/dBase specific rather than a problem with your SELECT statement.
Reading up I see people say that with FoxPro always use ALLTRIM() when using RIGHT() or LEN() on table fields because the data gets returned padded with spaces. I don't see how that would cause the exact bug you're seeing but you could try this maybe:
SELECT RIGHT(ALLTRIM(LINK),LEN(ALLTRIM(LINK))-8) ,LEN(ALLTRIM(LINK))-8,RIGHT(ALLTRIM(LINK),77),ALLTRIM(LINK)
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE DOCLBL = "V46145002A"
edit: OK I got a better idea - are there other rows in your result set?
According to this: https://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1706948 ... when you do SELECT (expr) in FoxPro whatever the length of the expr in the first row becomes that max length for that 'field' and so all subsequent rows get truncated to that length. Makes sense in a crazy 1970s sort of way.
So perhaps you have a row of data above the one we are talking about which comes out at 68 chars long and so every subsequent value gets truncated to that length.
The way around it is to pad your expression results with CAST or PADR:
SELECT PADR(RIGHT(ALLTRIM(LINK),LEN(ALLTRIM(LINK))-8),100),LEN(ALLTRIM(LINK))-8,PADR(RIGHT(ALLTRIM(LINK),77),100),LINK
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE DOCLBL = "V46145002A"
Or same without the ALLTRIM()
SELECT PADR(RIGHT(LINK,LEN(LINK)-8),100),LEN(LINK)-8,PADR(RIGHT(LINK,77),100),LINK
FROM LINKSTORE
WHERE DOCLBL = "V46145002A"

WHERE clause returning no results

I have the following query:
SELECT *
FROM public."Matches"
WHERE 'Matches.Id' = '24e81894-2f1e-4654-bf50-b75e584ed3eb'
I'm certain there is an existing match with this Id (tried it on other Ids as well), but it returns 0 rows. I'm new to querying with PgAdmin so it's probably just a simple error, but I've read the docs up and down and can't seem to find why this is returning nothing.
Single quotes are only used for strings in SQL. So 'Matches.Id' is a string constant and obviously not the same as '24e81894-2f1e-4654-bf50-b75e584ed3eb' thus the WHERE condition is always false (it's like writing where 1 = 0)
You need to use double quotes for identifiers, the same way you did in the FROM clause.
WHERE "Matches"."Id" = ...
In general the use of quoted identifiers is strongly discouraged.

SELECT JOIN +Column

I have the following query :
SELECT A.*, B.* FROM Employee AS A
LEFT JOIN EmployeeHistory AS B ON +B.EmployeeId = CASE
WHEN DeptId=1 THEN SUBSTRING(FunctionRef,2,3)
WHEN DeptId=2 THEN SUBSTRING(FunctionRef,2,2) END
I want to understand the + before the +B.EmployeeId, since SQL Server isn't throwing an error
The SQL you have posted is not valid T-SQL. This is because after you define the alias for Employee as A you have an ON ("A" is for Employee? What A? A is for Apple, E is for Employee. Bad Habits to Kick : Using table aliases like (a, b, c) or (t1, t2, t3)). The first table in a FROM can't be followed by an ON, ON is for tables that you are joining to.
If the first ON is meant to be a JOIN, it does work: db<>fiddle. But all the + is doing is being a leading plus or concatenation operator (which depends on the data type of EmployeeID). SELECT +1, + ''; is perfectly valid (though odd) syntax. The + is basically doing nothing.
Disclaimer: The opening paragraph is based on the original SQL the OP posted, which they stated they had copy and pasted from a working environment.
The + is a unary plus sign. It is analogous to then unary minus (-) but it doesn't do anything. If the second argument is a string, then it is a unary string concatenator, once again doing nothing.
I'm not sure what the purpose is.
You can check this out to get an idea:
select ++++1, + '', +'abc'
Maybe you forgot to include the second line JOIN table2 as B. If you included that line the query could become valid.
The +B.EmployeeId expression can mean 0+B.EmployeeId and thus the plus sign would not have any effect.

SQL query ignores "not between"

I have a data source like following
If I ran the following sql query it removes all the records with "Seg Type" MOD and ignores the Fnn range given.
select * from NpsoQueue
where SegmentType not in ('MOD')
and Fnn not between 0888452158 and 0888452158
I want the query to consider both conditions. So, if I ran the query it should remove only the first record
The logic in your where clause is incorrect
Use
select * from NpsoQueue
where NOT (
SegmentType = 'MOD'
and Fnn between '0888452158' and '0888452158'
)
Also, a number with a leading zero is a string literal so you need to put single quotes around it to preserve the leading zero and stop implicit casts happening
As mentioned by #TriV you could also use OR. These are fundamental boolean logic concepts, i.e. not related to SQL Server or databases

SQL conversion failed when converting

following situation:
a column xy is defined as varchar(25). In a view (SQL Server Mgmt Studio 2008) I filtered all values with letters (-> is not like '%[A-Z]%') and converted it to int (cast(xy as int)).
If I now try to make comprisons with that column (e.g. where xy < 1000), I'm getting a conversion error. And the message contains a value that should have been filtered with "is not like '%[A-Z]%'". Whats wrong??
thanks for help in advance...
this works (it folters out for example value 'G8111'):
SELECT unid
FROM CD_UNITS AS a INNER JOIN DEF_STATION AS b ON a.STATION = b.STATION
WHERE (b.CURENT = 'T') and UNID like '%[A-Z]%'
but when i put that in a view, an make select on it:
select * from my_view where xy < 3000
system says 'Conversion failed when converting the varchar value 'G8111' to data type int.' but 'G8111' should be filtered out in query above...
The optimizer does crazy things at times, so despite the fact that an "inner" filter1 "should" protect you, the optimizer may still push the conversion lower down than the filter and cause such errors.
The only semi-documented place where it will not do this is within a CASE expression:
The CASE statement(sic) evaluates its conditions sequentially and stops with the first condition whose condition is satisfied. In some situations, an expression is evaluated before a CASE statement receives the results of the expression as its input.
...
You should only depend on order of evaluation of the WHEN conditions for scalar expressions (including non-correlated sub-queries that return scalars), not for aggregate expressions
So the only way that should currently work would be:
CASE WHEN xy NOT LIKE '%[^0-9]%' THEN CONVERT(int,xy) END < 1000
This also uses a double-negative with LIKE to ensure that it only attempts the conversion when the value only contains digits.
1Whether this be in a subquery, a CTE, a View, or even just considering the logical processing order of SELECT and WHERE clauses. Within a single query, the optimizer can and will push conversion operations past filters.