SQL - Combining incomplete - sql

Question

I'm using Oracle 10g. I have a table with a number of fields of varying types. The fields contain observations that have been made by made about a particular thing on a particular date by a particular site.
So:
ItemID, Date, Observation1, Observation2, Observation3...
There are about 40 Observations in each record. The table structure cannot be changed at this point in time.
Unfortunately not all the Observations have been populated (either accidentally or because the site is incapable of making that recording). I need to combine all the records about a particular item into a single record in a query, making it as complete as possible.
A simple way to do this would be something like
SELECT
ItemID,
MAX(Date),
MAX(Observation1),
MAX(Observation2)
etc.
FROM
Table
GROUP BY
ItemID
But ideally I would like it to pick the most recent observation available, not the max/min value. I could do this by writing sub queries in the form
SELECT
ItemID,
ObservationX,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY ItemID ORDER BY Date DESC) ROWNUMBER
FROM
Table
WHERE
ObservationX IS NOT NULL
And joining all the ROWNUMBER 1s together for an ItemID but because of the number of fields this would require 40 subqueries.
My question is whether there's a more concise way of doing this that I'm missing.

Answer 1

Create the table and the sample date
SQL> create table observation(
2 item_id number,
3 dt date,
4 val1 number,
5 val2 number );
Table created.
SQL> insert into observation values( 1, date '2011-12-01', 1, null );
1 row created.
SQL> insert into observation values( 1, date '2011-12-02', null, 2 );
1 row created.
SQL> insert into observation values( 1, date '2011-12-03', 3, null );
1 row created.
SQL> insert into observation values( 2, date '2011-12-01', 4, null );
1 row created.
SQL> insert into observation values( 2, date '2011-12-02', 5, 6 );
1 row created.
And then use the KEEP clause on the MAX aggregate function with an ORDER BY that puts the rows with NULL observations at the end. whatever date you use in the ORDER BY needs to be earlier than the earliest real observation in the table.
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
1 select item_id,
2 max(val1) keep( dense_rank last
3 order by (case when val1 is not null
4 then dt
5 else date '1900-01-01'
6 end) ) val1,
7 max(val2) keep( dense_rank last
8 order by (case when val2 is not null
9 then dt
10 else date '1900-01-01'
11 end) ) val2
12 from observation
13* group by item_id
SQL> /
ITEM_ID VAL1 VAL2
---------- ---------- ----------
1 3 2
2 5 6
I suspect that there is a more elegant solution to ignore the NULL values than adding the CASE statement to the ORDER BY but the CASE gets the job done.

Answer 2

i dont know about commands in oracle but in sql you could use some how that
first use pivot table is contains consecutives numbers 0,1,2...
i'm not sure but in oracle the function "isnull" is "NVL"
select items.ItemId,
case p.i = 0 then observation1 else '' end as observation1,
case p.i = 0 then observation1 else '' end as observation2,
case p.i = 0 then observation1 else '' end as observation3,
...
case p.i = 39 then observation4 else '' as observation40
from (
select items.ItemId
from table as items
where items.item = _paramerter_for_retrive_only_one_item /* select one item o more item where you filter items here*/
group by items.ItemId) itemgroup
left join
(
select
items.ItemId,
p.i,
isnull( max ( case p.i = 0 then observation1 else '' end ), '' ) as observation1,
isnull( max ( case p.i = 1 then observation2 else '' end ), '' ) as observation2,
isnull( max ( case p.i = 2 then observation3 else '' end), '' ) as observation3,
...
isnull( max ( case p.i = 39 then observation4), '' ) as observation40,
from
(select i from pivot where id < 40 /*you number of columns of observations, that attach one index*/
)
as p
cross join table as items
lef join table as itemcombinations
on item.itemid = itemcombinations.itemid
where items.item = _paramerter_for_retrive_only_one_item /* select one item o more item where you filter items here*/
and (p.i = 0 and not itemcombinations.observation1 is null) /* column 1 */
and (p.i = 1 and not itemcombinations.observation2 is null) /* column 2 */
and (p.i = 2 and not itemcombinations.observation3 is null) /* column 3 */
....
and (p.i = 39 and not itemcombinations.observation3 is null) /* column 39 */
group by p.i, items.ItemId
) as itemsimplified
on itemsimplified.ItemId = itemgroup.itemId
group by itemgroup.itemId
About pivot table
create an pivot table, Take a look at that
pivot table schema
name: pivot columns: {i : datatype int}
How populate
create foo table
schema foo
name: foo column: value datatype varchar
insert into foo
values('0'),
values('1'),
values('2'),
values('3'),
values('4'),
values('5'),
values('6'),
values('7'),
values('8'),
values('9');
/* insert 100 values */
insert into pivot
select concat(a.value, a.value) /* mysql */
a.value + a.value /* sql server */
a.value | a.value /* Oracle im not sure about that sintax */
from foo a, foo b
/* insert 1000 values */
insert into pivot
select concat(a.value, b.value, c.value) /* mysql */
a.value + b.value + c.value /* sql server */
a.value | b.value | c.value /* Oracle im not sure about that sintax */
from foo a, foo b, foo c
the idea about pivot table can consult in "Transact-SQL Cookbook By Jonathan Gennick, Ales Spetic"
I have to admit that the above solution (by Justin Cave) is simpler and easier to understand but this is another good option
at the end like you said you solved