Finding contiguous regions in a sorted MS Access query - sql

I am a long time fan of Stack Overflow but I've come across a problem that I haven't found addressed yet and need some expert help.
I have a query that is sorted chronologically with a date-time compound key (unique, never deleted) and several pieces of data. What I want to know is if there is a way to find the start (or end) of a region where a value changes? I.E.
DateTime someVal1 someVal2 someVal3 target
1 3 4 A
1 2 4 A
1 3 4 A
1 2 4 B
1 2 5 B
1 2 5 A
and my query returns rows 1, 4 and 6. It finds the change in col 5 from A to B and then from B back to A? I have tried the find duplicates method and using min and max in the totals property however it gives me the first and last overall instead of the local max and min? Any similar problems?

I didn't see any purpose for the someVal1, someVal2, and someVal3 fields, so I left them out. I used an autonumber as the primary key instead of your date/time field; but this approach should also work with your date/time primary key. This is the data in my version of your table.
pkey_field target
1 A
2 A
3 A
4 B
5 B
6 A
I used a correlated subquery to find the previous pkey_field value for each row.
SELECT
m.pkey_field,
m.target,
(SELECT Max(pkey_field)
FROM YourTable
WHERE pkey_field < m.pkey_field)
AS prev_pkey_field
FROM YourTable AS m;
Then put that in a subquery which I joined to another copy of the base table.
SELECT
sub.pkey_field,
sub.target,
sub.prev_pkey_field,
prev.target AS prev_target
FROM
(SELECT
m.pkey_field,
m.target,
(SELECT Max(pkey_field)
FROM YourTable
WHERE pkey_field < m.pkey_field)
AS prev_pkey_field
FROM YourTable AS m) AS sub
LEFT JOIN YourTable AS prev
ON sub.prev_pkey_field = prev.pkey_field
WHERE
sub.prev_pkey_field Is Null
OR prev.target <> sub.target;
This is the output from that final query.
pkey_field target prev_pkey_field prev_target
1 A
4 B 3 A
6 A 5 B

Here is a first attempt,
SELECT t1.Row, t1.target
FROM t1 WHERE (((t1.target)<>NZ((SELECT TOP 1 t2.target FROM t1 AS t2 WHERE t2.DateTimeId<t1.DateTimeId ORDER BY t2.DateTimeId DESC),"X")));

Related

MonetDB: Enumerate groups of rows based on a given "boundary" condition

Consider the following table:
id gap groupID
0 0 1
2 3 1
3 7 2
4 1 2
5 5 2
6 7 3
7 3 3
8 8 4
9 2 4
Where groupID is the desired, computed column, such as its value is incremented whenever the gap column is greater than a threshold (in this case 6). The id column defines the sequential order of appearance of the rows (and it's already given).
Can you please help me figure out how to dynamically fill out the appropriate values for groupID?
I have looked in several other entries here in StackOverflow, and I've seen the usage of sum as an aggregate for a window function. I can't use sum because it's not supported in MonetDB window functions (only rank, dense_rank, and row_num). I can't use triggers (to modify the record insertion before it takes place) either because I need to keep the data mentioned above within a stored function in a local temporary table -- and trigger declarations are not supported in MonetDB function definitions.
I have also tried filling out the groupID column value by reading the previous table (id and gap) into another temporary table (id, gap, groupID), with the hope that this would force a row-by-row operation. But this has failed as well because it gives the groupID 0 to all records:
declare threshold int;
set threshold = 6;
insert into newTable( id, gap, groupID )
select A.id, A.gap,
case when A.gap > threshold then
(select case when max(groupID) is null then 0 else max(groupID)+1 end from newTable)
else
(select case when max(groupID) is null then 0 else max(groupID) end from newTable)
end
from A
order by A.id asc;
Any help, tip, or reference is greatly appreciated. It's been a long time already trying to figure this out.
BTW: Cursors are not supported in MonetDB either --
You can assign the group using a correlated subquery. Simply count the number of previous values that exceed 6:
select id, gap,
(select 1 + count(*)
from t as t2
where t2.id <= t.id and t2.gap > 6
) as Groupid
from t;

Selecting Rows and removing duplicates based on some fields based on two fields and limit to Top Ten?

Having this table:
Row Athlete Event Mark Meet
1 1 3 10 A
2 2 2 5 A
3 3 3 3 A
4 4 4 7 A
5 2 2 4 A
6 3 2 5 B
7 1 1 10 C
How can I select all rows but remove duplicate rows with have the athlete in the same event (Fields Athlete and Event), and pick the lowest (or highest Mark for that athlete), I would also like to limit each event to top 10 athletes (not shown in results)
Expected Output (choosing highest mark), (row 5 is removed)
Row Athlete Event Mark Meet
1 1 3 10 A
2 2 2 5 A
3 3 3 3 A
4 4 4 7 A
6 3 2 5 B
7 1 1 10 C
Thanks for the help the query that did what I wanted (minus the top ten) is:
SELECT [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Eventnum, [tblPerformanceData- FieldBoys].Mark, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Meet, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].CY, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].AthleteID, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].MeetID
FROM [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys] INNER JOIN MaxAthleteByEventBoysField ON ([tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].AthleteID = MaxAthleteByEventBoysField.AthleteID) AND ([tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Mark = MaxAthleteByEventBoysField.MaxOfMark) AND ([tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Eventnum = MaxAthleteByEventBoysField.Eventnum)
GROUP BY [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Eventnum, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Mark, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Meet, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].CY, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].AthleteID, [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].MeetID
ORDER BY [tblPerformanceData-FieldBoys].Mark DESC;
You can do it using cascading queries. Try running a group-by query on the main table that only includes the athlete, event, and mark. The max or min clause would be applied to the mark depending on the outcome you're looking for. Use this query as the source for a second query where you link back to the initial table using direct links between the athlete, event, and Mark field. what the second query should look like
That solves the first part. I'm not sure how to get the top ten for each event using queries.
I don't own or have access to MS Access, but I can give you SQL, and hope Access will support some basic syntax.
Option 1: it's easier if Row is your primary key but you do not need to return it in the result; in this case you can even get both MIN and MAX of the Mark for the same athlete in the same row using a simple query:
SELECT
Athlete, Event, Meet, MAX(Mark) AS HighestMark, MIN(Mark) AS LowestMark
FROM
MyTable
GROUP BY
Athlete, Event, Meet
Note: I assumed you also want to group by Meet, but if that's not the case, you could remove it from GROUP BY, but then its value loses meaning in the result.
Option 2: Row is primary key, but you do need to return it - obviously in this case min and max cannot be returned in the same row and the query looks quite different:
SELECT
Row, Athlete, Event, Mark, Meet
FROM
MyTable m0
WHERE m0.Row IN
(SELECT MAX(Row)
FROM MyTable m1
WHERE
Athlete = m0.Athlete AND
Event = m0.Event AND
Meet = m0.Meet
Mark = (SELECT MAX(Mark)
FROM MyTable
WHERE
Athlete = m1.Athlete AND
Event = m1.Event AND
Meet = m1.Meet)
GROUP BY
Athlete, Event, Meet, Mark)
Few notes:
above query returns MAX(Mark); change it to MIN(Mark) to return lowest values
this query could be rewritten with JOINs as well; I'm not sure which method Access likes better (i.e. runs faster)
it has 2 sub-queries; the top sub-query MAX(Row) is there to make sure only 1 row is selected if the same athlete in the same meet and event gets the same Mark; in this case, the greater Row is returned
it is possible to return both MIN and MAX with one query (as separate rows) at the expense of additional sub-queries, but that you didn't ask for

Get MAX() on repeating IDs

This is how my query results look like currently. How can I get the MAX() value for each unique id ?
IE,
for 5267139 is 8.
for 5267145 is 4
5267136 5
5267137 8
5267137 2
5267139 8
5267139 5
5267139 3
5267141 4
5267141 3
5267145 4
5267145 3
5267146 1
5267147 2
5267152 3
5267153 3
5267155 8
SELECT DISTINCT st.ScoreID, st.ScoreTrackingTypeID
FROM ScoreTrackingType stt
LEFT JOIN ScoreTracking st
ON stt.ScoreTrackingTypeID = st.ScoreTrackingTypeID
ORDER BY st.ScoreID, st.ScoreTrackingTypeID DESC
GROUP BY will partition your table into separate blocks based on the column(s) you specify. You can then apply an aggregate function (MAX in this case) against each of the blocks -- this behavior applies by default with the below syntax:
SELECT First_column, MAX(Second_column) AS Max_second_column
FROM Table
GROUP BY First_column
EDIT: Based on the query above, it looks like you don't really need the ScoreTrackingType table at all, but leaving it in place, you could use:
SELECT st.ScoreID, MAX(st.ScoreTrackingTypeID) AS ScoreTrackingTypeID
FROM ScoreTrackingType stt
LEFT JOIN ScoreTracking st ON stt.ScoreTrackingTypeID = st.ScoreTrackingTypeID
GROUP BY st.ScoreID
ORDER BY st.ScoreID
The GROUP BY will obviate the need for DISTINCT, MAX will give you the value you are looking for, and the ORDER BY will still apply, but since there will only be a single ScoreTrackingTypeID value for each ScoreID you can pull it out of the ordering.

Aggregation over order-dependent partition?

I have a source data set like this (simplified to be more clear):
Key F1 F2
1 X 4
2 X 5
3 Y 6
4 X 9
5 X 7
6 X 8
7 Y 9
8 X 6
9 X 5
10 Y 3
The data is sorted by the Key field. Now, I want to compute an aggregate of the F2 field over partitions that are defined by the F1 field: A partition starts at the first X value and ends with the first subsequent Y value.
So, for example, I might want wo compute the MIN() over the partitions defined as described above. Then the result set would look like this:
rownum MIN(F2)
1 4
2 7
3 3
I have tried a number of resources (incl. our own intranet community and of course stackoverflow) but found nothing for my case. Usually partitioning only works with a field that can be used to identify the partitions. Here, the partitions are defined by a change in a field's content with respect to a given order.
Although I am aware that I may have to resort to writing a procedural solution I would prefer to solve this in pure SQL.
Any ideas how such a partitioning could be achieved with a SQL select statement?
Thanks and regards
Kai.
A little bit shorter solution: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!12/7390d/24
Query:
select min(f2)
from t t1
group by (select max(key)
from t t2
where t2.f1='Y' and
t1.key > t2.key)
Result:
| MIN |
-------
| 4 |
| 7 |
| 3 |
The idea is to find the key of preceding 'Y' for each row and group by it. Should work with any SQL engine.
You didn't specify engine or dialect or version so I assumed SQL Server 2012.
Example that you can run to see the solution: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!6/f5d38/21
You solve it by creating correct partitions in your set. Code looks like this.
WITH groupLimits as
(
SELECT
[Key] AS groupend
,COALESCE(LAG([Key]) OVER (order by [Key]),0)+1 AS groupstart
FROM sourceData
WHERE F1 = 'Y'
)
SELECT
MIN(sourceData.F2)
FROM groupLimits
INNER JOIN sourceData
ON sourceData.[Key] BETWEEN groupLimits.groupstart and groupLimits.groupend
GROUP BY groupLimits.groupstart
ORDER BY groupLimits.groupstart

Delete duplicates when the duplicates are not in the same column

Here is a sample of my data (n>3000) that ties two numbers together:
id a b
1 7028344 7181310
2 7030342 7030344
3 7030354 7030353
4 7030343 7030345
5 7030344 7030342
6 7030364 7008059
7 7030659 7066051
8 7030345 7030343
9 7031815 7045692
10 7032644 7102337
Now, the problem is that id=2 is a duplicate of id=5 and id=4 is a duplicate of id=8. So, when I tried to write if-then statements to map column a to column b, basically the numbers just get swapped. There are many cases like this in my full data.
So, my question is to identify the duplicate(s) and somehow delete one of the duplicates (either id=2 or id=5). And I preferably want to do this in Excel but I could work with SQL Server or SAS, too.
Thank you in advance. Please comment if my question is not clear.
What I want:
id a b
1 7028344 7181310
2 7030342 7030344
3 7030354 7030353
4 7030343 7030345
6 7030364 7008059
7 7030659 7066051
9 7031815 7045692
10 7032644 7102337
All sorts of ways to do this.
In SAS or SQL, this is simple (for SQL Server, the SQL portion should be identical or nearly so):
data have;
input id a b;
datalines;
1 7028344 7181310
2 7030342 7030344
3 7030354 7030353
4 7030343 7030345
5 7030344 7030342
6 7030364 7008059
7 7030659 7066051
8 7030345 7030343
9 7031815 7045692
10 7032644 7102337
;;;;
run;
proc sql undopolicy=none;
delete from have H where exists (
select 1 from have V where V.id < H.id
and (V.a=H.a and V.b=H.b) or (V.a=H.b and V.b=H.a)
);
quit;
The excel solution would require creating an additional column I believe with the concatenation of the two strings, in order (any order will do) and then a lookup to see if that is the first row with that value or not. I don't think you can do it without creating an additional column (or using VBA, which if you can use that will have a fairly simple solution as well).
Edit:
Actually, the excel solution IS possible without creating a new column (well, you need to put this formula somewhere, but without ANOTHER additional column).
=IF(OR(AND(COUNTIF(B$1:B1,B2),COUNTIF(C$1:C1,C2)),AND(COUNTIF(B$1:B1,C2),COUNTIF(C$1:C1,B2))),"DUPLICATE","")
Assuming ID is in A, B and C contain the values (and there is no header row). That formula goes in the second row (ie, B2/C2 values) and then is extended to further rows (so row 36 will have the arrays be B1:B35 and C1:C35 etc.). That puts DUPLICATE in the rows which are duplicates of something above and blank in rows that are unique.
I haven't tested this out but here is some food for thought, you could join the table against itself and get the ID's that have duplicates
SELECT
id, a, b
FROM
[myTable]
INNER JOIN ( SELECT id, a, b FROM [myTable] ) tbl2
ON [myTable].a = [tbl2].b
OR [myTable].b = tbl2.a