MS Access Unique Constraint with more than 10 fields - ms-access

I know that this is a limitation of Access, but does anyone know of a good workaround that would allow me to avoid duplicate records in a situation where my table has 30 fields and I don't want any duplicate combinations of those 30 fields?
I'm basically batch loading financial data on a regular basis and I only want to add records if some of the information for a particular project id has changed since the last load. When I run the append query that adds new records I was hoping to use the constraint to block the inserts, but trying to figure out another solution.

To only insert the non-duplicating records, you need to filter out the duplicate ones in the query with a WHERE NOT EXISTS subquery, like this:
INSERT INTO tTgt (project_id, field1, ..., field30)
SELECT project_id, field1, ..., field30
FROM tSrc
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT project_id
FROM tTgt
WHERE tTgt.project_id = tSrc.project_id
AND tTgt.field1 = tSrc.field1
...
AND tTgt.field30 = tSrc.field30
)
The subquery will be rather lengthy, but in the end it's the same work that an index would have to do.

Related

Can I add rows to MySQL before removing all old rows (except same primary)?

If I have a table that has these rows:
animal (primary)
-------
man
dog
cow
and I want to delete all the rows and insert my new rows (that may contain some of the same data), such as:
animal (primary)
-------
dog
chicken
wolf
I could simply do something like:
delete from animal;
and then insert the new rows.
But when I do that, for a split second, 'dog' won't be accessible through the SELECT statement.
I could simply insert ignore the new data and then delete the rest, one by one, but that doesn't feel like the right solution when I have a lot of rows.
Is there a way to insert the new data and then have MySQL automatically delete the rest afterward?
I have a program that selects data from this table every 5 minutes (and the code I'm writing now will be updating this table once every 30 minutes), so I would like to be as accurate as possible at all times, and I would rather have too many rows for a split second than too few rows for the same time.
Note: I know that this may seem like it is unnecessary but I just feel like if I leave too many of those unlikely possibilities in different places, there will be times where things go wrong.
You may want to use TRUNCATE instead of DELETE here. TRUNCATE is faster than DELETE and resets the table back to its empty state (meaning IDENTITY columns are reset to original values as well).
Not sure why you're having problems with selecting a value that was deleted and re-added, maybe I'm missing some context. But if you're wiping the table clean, you might want to use truncate instead.
You could add another column timestamp and change the select statement to accommodate this scenario where it needs to check for the latest value.
If this is for school, I would argue that you need a timestamp and that is what your professor is looking for. You shouldn't need to truncate a table to get the latest values, you need to adjust the thinking behind the table and how you are querying data. Hope this helps!
Check out these:
How to make a mysql table with date and time columns?
Why not update values instead?
My other questions would be:
How are you loading this into the table?
What does that code look like?
Can you change the way you Select from the table?
What values are being "updated" and change in such a way that you need to truncate the entire table?
If you don't want to add new column, there is an other method.
1. At first step, update table in any way that mark all existing rows for deletion in future. For example:
UPDATE `table_name` SET `animal`=CONCAT('MUST_BE_DELETED_', `animal`)
At second step, insert new rows.
On final step, remove all marked rows:
DELETE FROM `table_name` WHERE `animal` LIKE 'MUST_BE_DELETED_%'
You could implement this by having the updated_on column as timestamp and you may even utilize some default values, but let's go with an example without them.
I presume the table would look something like this:
CREATE TABLE `new_table` (
`animal` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`updated_on` timestamp,
PRIMARY KEY (`animal`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB
This is just a dummy table example. What's important are the two queries later on.
You would simply perform a query to insert the data, such as:
insert into my_table(animal)
select animal from my_view where animal = 'dogs'
on duplicate key update
updated_on = current_timestamp;
Please notice that my_view is your table/view/query by which you supply the values to insert into your table. Also notice that you need to have primary/unique key constraint on your animal column in this example, in order to work.
Then, you proceed with the following query, to "purge" (delete) the old values:
delete from my_table
where updated_on < (
select *
from (
select max(updated_on) from my_table
) as max_date
);
Please notice that you could make a separate view in order to obtain this max_date value for updated_on entry. This entry should indicate the timestamp for your last updated/inserted values in a previous query, so you could proceed with utilizing it in a where clause in order to issue deletion of old records that you don't want/need anymore.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Since you are doing multiple queries and it's supposed to be a single operation, I'd advise you to utilize it within a single trancations and to utilize a proper rollback on various potential outcomes (i.e. in case of mysql exceptions). You might wish to utilize a proper stored procedure for that.

how to compare huge table of mysql

I have a huge table of mysqlwhich contains more than 33 million records .How I could compare my table to found non duplicate records , but unfortunately select statement doesn't work. Because it's huge table.
Please provide me a solution
First, Create a snapshot of your database or the tables you want to compare.
Optionally you can also limit the range of data you want to compare , for example only 3 years of data. This way your select query won't hog all the resources.
Snapshot will be bunch of files each representing a table containg your primary key or business key for each record ( I am assuming you can compare data based on aforementioned key . If thats not the case record all the field in your file)
Next, read each records from the file and do a select against the corresponding table. If there are more than 1 record you know it is a duplicate
Thanks
Look at the explain plan and see if what the DB is actually doing for the NOT IN.
You could try refactoring, with an index on subscriber as Roy suggested if necessary. I'm not familiar enough with MySQL to know whether the optimizer will execute these identically.
SELECT *
FROM contracts
WHERE NOT EXISTS
( SELECT 1
FROM edms
WHERE edms.subscriber=contracts.subscriber
);
-- or
SELECT C.*
FROM contracts AS C
LEFT
JOIN edms AS E
ON E.subscriber = C.subscriber
WHERE E.subscriber IS NULL;

I have a query that finds duplicates in my SQL database-now how do I delete said duplicates?

I have an sql query that finds and groups these duplicates using very complicated conditions:
SELECT right(post_url, LOCATE('-', REVERSE(post_url),LOCATE('-',REVERSE(post_url))+1) -1) as name,
left(post_name,LOCATE('-',post_url,LOCATE('-',post_url)+1) - 1) as city,
post_title as original,ID,post_name,count(*)
FROM table WHERE post_type='finder'
GROUP BY name,city having count(*) > 1
To explain the query, post_url is basically a url name, ending with the name of someone, e.g : new-jersey-something-something-donald-t
I go to the second dash from the right and get the name that way. Then I get the city/state which is in the second dash from the left. In this manner, I've successfully found the duplicates in this database-but I'm having trouble thinking of a way to isolate the duplicate and delete it. In addition, I only want to delete the copy that does not have %near% in post_url. my question is, using the query here, how would I change this to delete the duplicate?
You're not going to be able to do it in one query. That's because you need to write a query that looks something like this:
DELETE FROM table
WHERE id IN (SELECT ... FROM table WHERE ...)
MySQL specifically prohibits this. You can't delete based on a subquery that references the same table. You also can't rewrite this query using JOINs.
There is an easy solution, though: use a temporary table and two queries.
-- build the list of IDs to delete
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp
SELECT ... FROM table WHERE ...
-- now delete those items
DELETE FROM table
WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM temp);
You can improve performance with JOINs and indexes.
The key to "isolating" the duplicates is to ensure that every item you want to delete has a primary key - that way you can easily build a list of IDs to delete. If your table don't have primary keys, you are reduced to doing WHERE clauses and JOINs on multiple columns - that gets messy very quickly.

Which one faster on Check and Skip Insert if existing on SQL / MySQL

I have read many article about this one. I want to hear from you.
My problem is:
A table: ID(INT, Unique, Auto Increase) , Title(varchar), Content(text), Keywords(varchar)
My PHP Code will always do insert new record, but not accept duplicated record base on Title or Keywords. So, the title or keyword can't be Primary field. My PHP Code need to do check existing and insert like 10-20 records same time.
So, I check like this:
SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE TITLE=XXX
And if return nothing, then I do INSERT.
I read some other post. And some guy say:
INSERT IGNORE INTO Table values()
An other guy suggest:
SELECT COUNT(ID) FROM TABLE
IF it return 0, then do INSERT
I don't know which one faster between those queries.
And I have 1 more question, what is different and faster on those queries too:
SELECT COUNT(ID) FROM ..
SELECT COUNT(0) FROM ...
SELECT COUNT(1) FROM ...
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM ...
All of them show me total of records in table, but I don't know do mySQL think number 0 or 1 is my ID field? Even I do SELECT COUNT(1000) , I still get total records of my table, while my table only have 4 columns.
I'm using MySQL Workbench, have any option for test speed on this app?
I would use insert on duplicate key update command. One important comment from the documents states that: "...if there is a single multiple-column unique index on the table, then the update uses (seems to use) all columns (of the unique index) in the update query."
So if there is a UNIQUE(Title,Keywords) constraint on the table in the example, then, you would use:
INSERT INTO table (Title,Content,Keywords) VALUES ('blah_title','blah_content','blah_keywords')
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE Content='blah_content';
it should work and it is one query to the database.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM .... is faster than SELECT COUNT(ID) FROM .. or build something like this:
INSERT INTO table (a,b,c) VALUES (1,2,3)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE c=3;

SQL: Select Keys that doesn't exist in one table

I got a table with a normal setup of auto inc. ids. Some of the rows have been deleted so the ID list could look something like this:
(1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ...)
Then, from another source (Edit: Another source = NOT in a database) I have this array:
(1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8)
I'm looking for a query I can use on the database to get the list of ID:s NOT in the table from the array I have. Which would be:
(4, 7)
Does such exist? My solution right now is either creating a temporary table so the command "WHERE table.id IS NULL" works, or probably worse, using the PHP function array_diff to see what's missing after having retrieved all the ids from table.
Since the list of ids are closing in on millions or rows I'm eager to find the best solution.
Thank you!
/Thomas
Edit 2:
My main application is a rather easy table which is populated by a lot of rows. This application is administrated using a browser and I'm using PHP as the intepreter for the code.
Everything in this table is to be exported to another system (which is 3rd party product) and there's yet no way of doing this besides manually using the import function in that program. There's also possible to insert new rows in the other system, although the agreed routing is to never ever do this.
The problem is then that my system cannot be 100 % sure that the user did everything correct from when he/she pressed the "export" key. Or, that no rows has ever been created in the other system.
From the other system I can get a CSV-file out where all the rows that system has. So, by comparing the CSV file and my table I can see if:
* There are any rows missing in the other system that should have been imported
* If someone has created rows in the other system
The problem isn't "solving it". It's making the best solution to is since there are so much data in the rows.
Thanks again!
/Thomas
We can use MYSQL not in option.
SELECT id
FROM table_one
WHERE id NOT IN ( SELECT id FROM table_two )
Edited
If you are getting the source from a csv file then you can simply have to put these values directly like:
I am assuming that the CSV are like 1,2,3,...,n
SELECT id
FROM table_one
WHERE id NOT IN ( 1,2,3,...,n );
EDIT 2
Or If you want to select the other way around then you can use mysqlimport to import data in temporary table in MySQL Database and retrieve the result and delete the table.
Like:
Create table
CREATE TABLE my_temp_table(
ids INT,
);
load .csv file
LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'yourIDs.csv' INTO TABLE my_temp_table
FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
(ids);
Selecting records
SELECT ids FROM my_temp_table
WHERE ids NOT IN ( SELECT id FROM table_one )
dropping table
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS my_temp_table
What about using a left join ; something like this :
select second_table.id
from second_table
left join first_table on first_table.id = second_table.id
where first_table.is is null
You could also go with a sub-query ; depending on the situation, it might, or might not, be faster, though :
select second_table.id
from second_table
where second_table.id not in (
select first_table.id
from first_table
)
Or with a not exists :
select second_table.id
from second_table
where not exists (
select 1
from first_table
where first_table.id = second_table.id
)
The function you are looking for is NOT IN (an alias for <> ALL)
The MYSQL documentation:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/all-subqueries.html
An Example of its use:
http://www.roseindia.net/sql/mysql-example/not-in.shtml
Enjoy!
The problem is that T1 could have a million rows or ten million rows, and that number could change, so you don't know how many rows your comparison table, T2, the one that has no gaps, should have, for doing a WHERE NOT EXISTS or a LEFT JOIN testing for NULL.
But the question is, why do you care if there are missing values? I submit that, when an application is properly architected, it should not matter if there are gaps in an autoincrementing key sequence. Even an application where gaps do matter, such as a check-register, should not be using an autoincrenting primary key as a synonym for the check number.
Care to elaborate on your application requirement?
OK, I've read your edits/elaboration. Syncrhonizing two databases where the second is not supposed to insert any new rows, but might do so, sounds like a problem waiting to happen.
Neither approach suggested above (WHERE NOT EXISTS or LEFT JOIN) is air-tight and neither is a way to guarantee logical integrity between the two systems. They will not let you know which system created a row in situations where both tables contain a row with the same id. You're focusing on gaps now, but another problem is duplicate ids.
For example, if both tables have a row with id 13887, you cannot assume that database1 created the row. It could have been inserted into database2, and then database1 could insert a new row using that same id. You would have to compare all column values to ascertain that the rows are the same or not.
I'd suggest therefore that you also explore GUID as a replacement for autoincrementing integers. You cannot prevent database2 from inserting rows, but at least with GUIDs you won't run into a problem where the second database has inserted a row and assigned it a primary key value that your first database might also use, resulting in two different rows with the same id. CreationDateTime and LastUpdateDateTime columns would also be useful.
However, a proper solution, if it is available to you, is to maintain just one database and give users remote access to it, for example, via a web interface. That would eliminate the mess and complication of replication/synchronization issues.
If a remote-access web-interface is not feasible, perhaps you could make one of the databases read-only? Or does database2 have to make updates to the rows? Perhaps you could deny insert privilege? What database engine are you using?
I have the same problem: I have a list of values from the user, and I want to find the subset that does not exist in anther table. I did it in oracle by building a pseudo-table in the select statement Here's a way to do it in Oracle. Try it in MySQL without the "from dual":
-- find ids from user (1,2,3) that *don't* exist in my person table
-- build a pseudo table and join it with my person table
select pseudo.id from (
select '1' as id from dual
union select '2' as id from dual
union select '3' as id from dual
) pseudo
left join person
on person.person_id = pseudo.id
where person.person_id is null