This is my first question here, I'll try my best to be clear and factual. I've googled for quite a long time but never got the result I wanted. My Mysql knowledge isn't the best and maybe that's why I can't get this answer to work with my wanted function.
At first, here's my Mysql data
user | speed | strength | stamina | precision
---------------------------------------------
1 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2
2 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 4
3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 3
Question
I want a Mysql query that find the most similar row to a specific user. For example, if I want to see who's most similar to user 1, I want it to find user 3. User 1 and 2 have in total the same value (14) but 1 and 3 are more similar, see the picture for a better view.
I'd be so glad and grateful if someone knew what Mysql function I should look at, or if you have any ideas.
I think your requirement translated into functions would be "the minimum value of the average of the differences between users scores at ability level".
If that's the case, it can be translated in SQL like this
select t2.user,
(
abs(t1.speed - t2.speed) +
abs(t1.strength - t2.strength) +
abs(t1.stamina - t2.stamina) +
abs(t1.precision - t2.precision)
) / 4 as diff_avg
from users t1
cross join
users t2
where t2.user <> t1.user and
t1.user = 1 /* the starting user id goes here */
order by 2 asc
limit 1
The most accurate solution to do this numerically is by using profile similarity - by getting the rows with the highest correlation coefficient to User1
I have been looking for a way to do this in MySQL but can't seem to find a way to. Hope someone knows enough about this to help us
Related
I have two mysql tables like bellow:
table_category
-----------------
id | name | type
1 | A | Cloth
2 | B | Fashion
3 | C | Electronics
4 | D | Electronics
table_product
------------------
id | cat_cloth | cat_fashion | cat_electronics
1 | 1 | 2 | 3
1 | NULL | 2 | 4
Here cat_cloth, cat_fashion, cat_electronics is ID from table_category
It is better to have another table for category type but I need a quick solution for now.
I want to get list of categories with total number of products. I wrote following query:
SELECT table_category.*, table_product.id, COUNT(table_product.id) as count
FROM table_category
LEFT JOIN table_product` ON table_category.id = table_product.cat_cloth
OR table_category.id = table_product.cat_fashion
OR table_category.id = table_product.cat_electronis
GROUP BY table_product.id
ORDER BY table_product.id ASC
Question: The sql I wrote it works but I have more then 14K categories and 50K products and the sql works very slow. I added index for cat_* ids but no improvement. My question how can I optimize this query?
I found the query takes 3-4 minutes to process the volume of data I mentioned. I want to reduce the execution time.
Best Regards
As far as I can say every "OR" either in "ON" or "WHERE" part is very cost expensive. It will sound very stupid but I would recommend you to make 3 separate small selects combined together with UNION ALL.
This we do with similar problems both in mysql and postgresql and in some cases when we got "resources exceeded" we had to do it also for bigquery. So it is very stupid and you will have more work but it certainly works and it is much quicker in producing results then many "OR"s.
I am by no means an MySQL expert, so I am looking for any help on this matter.
I need to perform a simple test (in principle), I have this (simplified) table:
tableid | userid | car | From | To
--------------------------------------------------------
1 | 1 | Fiesta | 2015-01-01 | 2015-01-31
2 | 1 | MX5 | 2015-02-01 | 2015-02-28
3 | 1 | Navara | 2015-03-01 | 2015-03-31
4 | 1 | GTR | 2015-03-28 | 2015-04-30
5 | 2 | Focus | 2015-01-01 | 2015-01-31
6 | 2 | i5 | 2015-02-01 | 2015-02-28
7 | 2 | Aygo | 2015-03-01 | 2015-03-31
8 | 2 | 206 | 2015-03-29 | 2015-04-30
9 | 1 | Skyline | 2015-04-29 | 2015-05-31
10 | 2 | Skyline | 2015-04-29 | 2015-05-31
I need to find two things here:
If any user has date overlaps in his car assignments of more than one day (end of the assignment can be on the same day as the new assignment start).
Did any two users tried to get the same car assigned on the same date, or the date ranges overlap for them on the same car.
So the query (or queries) I am looking for should return those rows:
tableid | userid | car | From | To
--------------------------------------------------------
3 | 1 | Navara | 2015-03-01 | 2015-03-31
4 | 1 | GTR | 2015-03-28 | 2015-04-30
7 | 2 | Aygo | 2015-03-01 | 2015-03-31
8 | 2 | 206 | 2015-03-29 | 2015-04-30
9 | 1 | Skyline | 2015-04-29 | 2015-05-31
10 | 2 | Skyline | 2015-04-29 | 2015-05-31
I feel like I am bashing my head against the wall here, I would be happy with being able to do these comparisons in separate queries. I need to display them in one table but I could always then join the results.
I've done research and few hours of testing but I cant get nowhere near the result I want.
SQLFiddle with the above test data
I've tried these posts btw (they were not exactly what I needed but were close enough, or so I thought):
Comparing two date ranges within the same table
How to compare values of text columns from the same table
This was the closest solution I could find but when I tried it on a single table (joining table to itself) I was getting crazy results: Checking a table for time overlap?
EDIT
As a temporary solution I have adapted a different approach, similar to the posts I have found during my research (above). I will now check if the new car rental / assignment date overlaps with any date range within the table. If so I will save the id(s) of the rows that the date overlaps with. This way at least I will be able to flag overlaps and allow a user to look at the flagged rows and to resolve any overlaps manually.
Thanks to everyone who offered their help with this, I will flag philipxy answer as the chosen one (in next 24h) unless someone has better way of achieving this. I have no doubt that following his answer I will be able to eventually reach the results I need. At the moment though I need to adopt any solution that works as I need to finish my project in next few days, hence the change of approach.
Edit #2
The both answers are brilliant and to anyone who finds this post having the same issue as I did, read them both and look at the fiddles! :) A lot of amazing brain-work went into them! Temporarily I had to go with the solution I mention in #1 Edit of mine but I will be adapting my queries to go with #Ryan Vincent approach + #philipxy edits/comments about ignoring the initial one day overlap.
Here is the first part: Overlapping cars per user...
SQLFiddle - correlated Query and Join Query
Second part - more than one user in one car at the same time: SQLFiddle - correlated Query and Join Query. Query below...
I use the correlated queries:
You will likely need indexes on userid and 'car'. However - please check the 'explain plan' to see how it mysql is accessing the data. And just try it :)
Overlapping cars per user
The query:
SELECT `allCars`.`userid` AS `allCars_userid`,
`allCars`.`car` AS `allCars_car`,
`allCars`.`From` AS `allCars_From`,
`allCars`.`To` AS `allCars_To`,
`allCars`.`tableid` AS `allCars_id`
FROM
`cars` AS `allCars`
WHERE
EXISTS
(SELECT 1
FROM `cars` AS `overlapCar`
WHERE
`allCars`.`userid` = `overlapCar`.`userid`
AND `allCars`.`tableid` <> `overlapCar`.`tableid`
AND NOT ( `allCars`.`From` >= `overlapCar`.`To` /* starts after outer ends */
OR `allCars`.`To` <= `overlapCar`.`From`)) /* ends before outer starts */
ORDER BY
`allCars`.`userid`,
`allCars`.`From`,
`allCars`.`car`;
The results:
allCars_userid allCars_car allCars_From allCars_To allCars_id
-------------- ----------- ------------ ---------- ------------
1 Navara 2015-03-01 2015-03-31 3
1 GTR 2015-03-28 2015-04-30 4
1 Skyline 2015-04-29 2015-05-31 9
2 Aygo 2015-03-01 2015-03-31 7
2 206 2015-03-29 2015-04-30 8
2 Skyline 2015-04-29 2015-05-31 10
Why it works? or How I think about it:
I use the correlated query so I don't have duplicates to deal with and it is probably the easiest to understand for me. There are other ways of expressing the query. Each has advantages and drawbacks. I want something I can easily understand.
Requirement: For each user ensure that they don't have two or more cars at the same time.
So, for each user record (AllCars) check the complete table (overlapCar) to see if you can find a different record that overlaps for the time of the current record. If we find one then select the current record we are checking (in allCars).
Therefore the overlap check is:
the allCars userid and the overLap userid must be the same
the allCars car record and the overlap car record must be different
the allCars time range and the overLap time range must overlap.
The time range check:
Instead of checking for overlapping times use positive tests. The easiest approach, is to check it doesn't overlap, and apply a NOT to it.
One car with More than One User at the same time...
The query:
SELECT `allCars`.`car` AS `allCars_car`,
`allCars`.`userid` AS `allCars_userid`,
`allCars`.`From` AS `allCars_From`,
`allCars`.`To` AS `allCars_To`,
`allCars`.`tableid` AS `allCars_id`
FROM
`cars` AS `allCars`
WHERE
EXISTS
(SELECT 1
FROM `cars` AS `overlapUser`
WHERE
`allCars`.`car` = `overlapUser`.`car`
AND `allCars`.`tableid` <> `overlapUser`.`tableid`
AND NOT ( `allCars`.`From` >= `overlapUser`.`To` /* starts after outer ends */
OR `allCars`.`To` <= `overlapUser`.`From`)) /* ends before outer starts */
ORDER BY
`allCars`.`car`,
`allCars`.`userid`,
`allCars`.`From`;
The results:
allCars_car allCars_userid allCars_From allCars_To allCars_id
----------- -------------- ------------ ---------- ------------
Skyline 1 2015-04-29 2015-05-31 9
Skyline 2 2015-04-29 2015-05-31 10
Edit:
In view of the comments, by #philipxy , about time ranges needing 'greater than or equal to' checks I have updated the code here. I havn't changed the SQLFiddles.
For each input and output table find its meaning. Ie a statement template parameterized by column names, aka predicate, that a row makes into a true or false statement, aka proposition. A table holds the rows that make its predicate into a true proposition. Ie rows that make a true proposition go in a table and rows that make a false proposition stay out. Eg for your input table:
rental [tableid] was user [userid] renting car [car] from [from] to [to]
Then phrase the output table predicate in terms of the input table predicate. Don't use descriptions like your 1 & 2:
If any user has date overlaps in his car assignments of more than one day (end of the assignment can be on the same day as the new assignment start).
Instead find the predicate that an arbitrary row states when in the table:
rental [tableid] was user [user] renting car [car] from [from] to [to]
in self-conflict with some other rental
For the DBMS to calculate the rows making this true we must express this in terms of our given predicate(s) plus literals & conditions:
-- query result holds the rows where
FOR SOME t2.tableid, t2.userid, ...:
rental [t1.tableid] was user [t1.userid] renting car [t1.car] from [t1.from] to [t1.to]
AND rental [t2.tableid] was user [t2.userid] renting car [t2.car] from [t2.from] to [t2.to]
AND [t1.userid] = [t2.userid] -- userids id the same users
AND [t1.to] > [t2.from] AND ... -- tos/froms id intervals with overlap more than one day
...
(Inside an SQL SELECT statement the cross product of JOINed tables has column names of the form alias.column. Think of . as another character allowed in column names. Finally the SELECT clause drops the alias.s.)
We convert a query predicate to an SQL query that calculates the rows that make it true:
A table's predicate gets replaced by the table alias.
To use the same predicate/table multiple times make aliases.
Changing column old to new in a predicate adds ANDold=new.
AND of predicates gets replaced by JOIN.
OR of predicates gets replaced by UNION.
AND NOT of predicates gets replaced by EXCEPT, MINUS or appropriate LEFT JOIN.
ANDcondition gets replaced by WHERE or ON condition.
For a predicate true FOR SOMEcolumns to drop or when THERE EXISTScolumns to drop, SELECT DISTINCTcolumns to keep.
Etc. (See this.)
Hence (completing the ellipses):
SELECT DISTINCT t1.*
FROM t t1 JOIN t t2
ON t1.userid = t1.userid -- userids id the same users
WHERE t1.to > t2.from AND t2.to > t1.from -- tos/froms id intervals with overlap more than one day
AND t1.tableid <> t2.tableid -- tableids id different rentals
Did any two users tried to get the same car assigned on the same date, or the date ranges overlap for them on the same car.
Finding the predicate that an arbitrary row states when in the table:
rental [tableid] was user [user] renting car [car] from [from] to [to]
in conflict with some other user's rental
In terms of our given predicate(s) plus literals & conditions:
-- query result holds the rows where
FOR SOME t2.*
rental [t1.tableid] was user [t1.userid] renting car [t1.car] from [t1.from] to [t1.to]
AND rental [t2.tableid] was user [t2.userid] renting car [t2.car] from [t2.from] to [t2.to]
AND [t1.userid] <> [t2.userid] -- userids id different users
AND [t1.car] = [t2.car] -- .cars id the same car
AND [t1.to] >= [t2.from] AND [t2.to] >= [t1.from] -- tos/froms id intervals with any overlap
AND [t1.tableid] <> [t2.tableid] -- tableids id different rentals
The UNION of queries for predicates 1 & 2 returns the rows for which predicate 1ORpredicate 2.
Try to learn to express predicates--what rows state when in tables--if only as the goal for intuitive (sub)querying.
PS It is good to always have data checking edge & non-edge cases for a condition being true & being false. Eg try query 1 with GTR starting on the 31st, an overlap of only one day, which should not be a self-conflict.
PPS Querying involving duplicate rows, as with NULLs, has quite complex query meanings. It's hard to say when a tuple goes in or stays out of a table and how many times. For queries to have the simple intuitive meanings per my correspondences they can't have duplicates. Here SQL unfortunately differs from the relational model. In practice people rely on idioms when allowing non-distinct rows & they rely on rows being distinct because of constraints. Eg joining on UNIQUE columns per UNIQUEs, PKs & FKs. Eg: A final DISTINCT step is only doing work at a different time than a version that doesn't need it; time might or might not be be an important implementation issue affecting the phrasing chosen for a given predicate/result.
I'm a bit of a newby at SQL and I don't really understand what to do here, so any help is really appreciated. I have a table full of readings from different readers, there's like 500.000 of them, so I can't do this by hand.
I received the table without the difference in it. I managed to calculate it, but there's a bit of a problem there...
It looks a bit like this:
reader_id | date | reading | difference
1 | 01-01-2013 | 205 | 0
1 | 02-01-2013 | 210 | 5
1 | 03-01-2013 | 213 | 3
... | ... | ... | ...
1 | 31-12-2013 | 2451 | 4
2 | 01-01-2013 | 8543 | 6092
2 | 02-01-2013 | 8548 | 5
reader_id and date form the primary key. The combination is unique.
How can I make sure I don't get the difference calculated when the last column contained a different reader_id?
When querying my data with a query like this one, the data get skewed by the incorrect difference between the two reader_ids:
SELECT AVG(difference), reader_id FROM table GROUP BY reader_id
For
I just want to get the average difference for each reader.
your query is perfectly good. I think you got something wrong in your difference calculation. The first value for reader_id=2, 6092, is the difference of the last reading from reader1 and the first reading from reader 2, i don't think that makes sense. If i'm not mistaken, the difference value is the current day reading - previous day reading. Therefore you should set the difference value of the first reading of each reader to 0.
You can do this with the following query:
UPDATE table t INNER JOIN (SELECT reader_id, min(date) as first_day FROM table GROUP BY reader_id) as tmp ON tmp.reader_id=t.reader_id AND tmp.first_day=t.date SET t.difference=0
Then
SELECT AVG(difference), reader_id FROM table GROUP BY reader_id
will do what you expect.
If you simply want the average difference, you can use the following query:
SELECT
meter_id,
MAX(reading) - MIN(reading) / COUNT(*) average_difference
FROM table
GROUP BY meter_id
ORDER BY meter_id;
It works on the logic that the the total difference for a given meter_id should be equal to MAX(reading) - MIN(reading).
I have 6 tables. These are simplified for this example.
user_items
ID | user_id | item_name | version
-------------------------------------
1 | 123 | test | 1
data
ID | name | version | info
----------------------------
1 | test | 1 | info
data_emails
ID | name | version | email_id
------------------------
1 | test | 1 | 1
2 | test | 1 | 2
emails
ID | email
-------------------
1 | email#address.com
2 | second#email.com
data_ips
ID | name | version | ip_id
----------------------------
1 | test | 1 | 1
2 | test | 1 | 2
ips
ID | ip
--------
1 | 1.2.3.4
2 | 2.3.4.5
What I am looking to achieve is the following.
The user (123) has the item with name 'test'. This is the basic information we need for a given entry.
There is data in our 'data' table and the current version is 1 as such the version in our user_items table is also 1. The two tables are linked together by the name and version. The setup is like this as a user could have an item for which we dont have data, likewise there could be an item for which we have data but no user owns..
For each item there are also 0 or more emails and ips associated. These can be the same for many items so rather than duplicate the actual email varchar over and over we have the data_emails and data_ips tables which link to the emails and ips table respectively based on the email_id/ip_id and the respective ID columns.
The emails and ips are associated with the data version again through the item name and version number.
My first query is is this a good/well optimized database setup?
My next query and my main question is joining this complex data structure.
What i had was:
PHP
- get all the user items
- loop through them and get the most recent data entry (if any)
- if there is one get the respective emails
- get the respective ips
Does that count as 3 queries or essentially infinite depending on the number of user items?
I was made to believe that the above was inefficient and as such I wanted to condense my setup into using one query to get the same data.
I have achieved that with the following code
SELECT user_items.name,GROUP_CONCAT( emails.email SEPARATOR ',' ) as emails, x.ip
FROM user_items
JOIN data AS data ON (data.name = user_items.name AND data.version = user_items.version)
LEFT JOIN data_emails AS data_emails ON (data_emails.name = user_items.name AND data_emails.version = user_items.version)
LEFT JOIN emails AS emails ON (data_emails.email_id = emails.ID)
LEFT JOIN
(SELECT name,version,GROUP_CONCAT( the_ips.ip SEPARATOR ',' ) as ip FROM data_ips
LEFT JOIN ips as the_ips ON data_ips.ip_id = the_ips.ID )
x ON (x.name = data.name AND x.version = user_items.version)
I have done loads of reading to get to this point and worked tirelessly to get here.
This works as I require - this question seeks to clarify what are the benefits of using this instead?
I have had to use a subquery (I believe?) to get the ips as previously it was multiplying results (I believe based on the complex joins). How this subquery works I suppose is my main confusion.
Summary of questions.
-Is my database setup well setup for my usage? Any improvements would be appreciated. And any useful resources to help me expand my knowledge would be great.
-How does the subquery in my sql actually work - what is the query doing?
-Am i correct to keep using left joins - I want to return the user item, and null values if applicable to the right.
-Am I essentially replacing a potentially infinite number of queries with 2? Does this make a REAL difference? Can the above be improved?
-Given that when i update a version of an item in my data table i know have to update the version in the user_items table, I now have a few more update queries to do. Is the tradeoff off of this setup in practice worthwhile?
Thanks to anyone who contributes to helping me get a better grasp of this !!
Given your data layout, and your objective, the query is correct. If you've only got a small amount of data it shouldn't be a performance problem - that will change quickly as the amount of data grows. However when you ave a large amount of data there are very few circumstances where you should ever see all your data in one go, implying that the results will be filtered in some way. Exactly how they are filtered has a huge impact on the structure of the query.
How does the subquery in my sql actually work
Currently it doesn't work properly - there is no GROUP BY
Is the tradeoff off of this setup in practice worthwhile?
No - it implies that your schema is too normalized.
I am thinking of returning a randomly ordered SQL response where the results are mixed up randomly, with a limit.
The thing is I need All the rows back, basically divided into groups (chunks of rows). I hope I am clear.
For example, from table A:
ID | NAME | PROFESSION
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 | Jack | Carpenter
2 | Rob | Manager
3 | Phil | Driver
4 | Mary | Cook
5 | Tim | Postman
6 | Bob | Programmer
The query would return something like this:
With a limit of 0,2:
6 | Bob | Programmer
4 | Mary | Cook
With a limit of 2,2:
1 | Jack | Carpenter
5 | Tim | Postman
With a limit of 4,2:
3 | Phil | Driver
2 | Rob | Manager
Note: all the table rows were returned. In my page I need to have a << >> buttons that will show the user the needed "group"s of data.
How do I go about writing such a query ?
A better name for your explained problem would be randomly shuffled records. That is true that the order is random but since the order needs to be remembered, you have no choice but to save it in a column. You can do this by saving a randomly populated field and ordering your records based on that. This way you have ordered your records in no specific order while the order is remembered for future select queries. And whenever you got tired of the order, you can update the mentioned field with new randomly generated values to shuffle them again. This is the technique used by players to shuffle a playlist without replaying a song twice.
[EDIT]
While the first given solution stands as the general answer, there's a hack you can use in MySQL to randomly order records. In this way, all you need to store for remembering an order is its seed.
SELECT * FROM tbl ORDER BY RAND(s);
For instance, if you want each user see the records in some different randomly ordered, you can use their user_id as the seed. This way the order each user will ever see the records in, will remain the same while it is random and different from other users.
I can think of two things here:
If the data in the table is huge, add a column that tells the group to which a row belongs. When the user clicks on >> or << buttons, get the rows for that particular group.
If you are dealing with small amount of data, you could do this in the code itself.
If you use ORDER BY RAND() then you will have to flag selected records somewhere which is no advisable.
You can use some intelligent algorithm with combination of total_pages and ID e.g.
SELECT *
FROM my_table
ORDER BY MOD(ID, total_pages);
Add a column to the table called something like random_col
Then each time you need to randomise the table you run
UPDATE table SET random_col = RAND()
And now each time you want to retrieve results you run a normal select
SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY random_col ASC LIMIT x,y
And the results will appear in the same order until you randomise them again by running the 'UPDATE'