SQl query Multiple select statments in the same table under different conditions - mysql

So I have 3 tables that I want to perform some queries on but during that process I end up returning back to a table I already performed some functions on and it.
I first get the essn from one dependent table and search the employee table for a ssn matching it then i got the superssn and compare to the mgrssn in another table. The last step is to go back into the employee table and find the name of the person who has the same ssn of mgrssn.
The issue here is that once i get the matching superssn I can't access the other rows.
select lname, fname from
(select mgrssn from department) as d,
(select superssn, lname,fname,ssn from
(select essn from dependent where dependent_name ='joy') as de,
(select ssn,lname,fname,superssn from employee) as e
where essn =ssn) as s
where s.ssn = mgrssn
Should I look into doing joins instead?

You don't need the subqueries. Your query is a bit hard to follow (you don't have table aliases for all the columns), but I think this is what you are trying to do:
select lname, fname
from department d join
employee e
on e.ssn = d.mgrssn join
dependent dep
on dep.essn = e.ssn
where dep.dependent_name ='joy';
Simple rule: Never use commas in the from clause. Always use explicit join syntax.

Related

Can you explain these 2 SQL queries to me?

I'm studying for my DB exam which covers a lot of SQL statements I need to write by hand. Below is the schema diagram and solutions for 2 scenarios that were outlined in my book that don't seem to make sense to me.
Q13: Retrieve the names of all employees in department 5 who work more than 10 hours per week on the ProductX project.
SELECT FNAME, LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE,PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE DNO = 5 AND PNAME = ‘PRODUCT X’ AND HOURS>10 AND ESSN=SSN;
Shouldn't the WHERE clause include PNO = NUMBER ? How would the WORKS_ON table know to reference the PROJECT table without including this? Is it because we reference the ESSN = SSN?
Q1: Retrieve the name of each employee who has a dependent with the same first name and is the same sex as the employee.
SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE AS E
WHERE E.SSN IN (SELECT D.ESSN FROM DEPENDENT AS D WHERE E.FNAME = D.DEPENDENT_NAME AND D.SEX = E.SEX);
I understand this query all the way up until the WHERE clause. I don't understand what E.SSN IN is trying to do with the sub query ahead of it. If someone can explain this, that would be great.
For the first question, yes you guessed it right. There should be another clause as PNO = NUMBER.
For second question, think of it this way: Select an employee where employee number[Ssn] is in the list of employeeIDs [Essn] returned by sub-query for each given employee number [Ssn]. This should work fine. But, because Essn and Dependant Name are both keys for the Dependent table, you can also use simple join statements and get it done. Read about it here: http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_join.asp
For Q13: You need to include one more condition in WHERE clause that tells the relation between Works_on and Project, which is
SELECT FNAME, LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE,PROJECT, WORKS_ON
WHERE Pno = Pnumber AND DNO = 5 AND PNAME = ‘PRODUCT X’ AND HOURS>10 AND ESSN=SSN;
Q1: uses correlated sub-query.
SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME
FROM EMPLOYEE E
INNER JOIN WORKS_ON WO
ON WO.Essn = E.Ssn
INNER JOIN PROJECT P
ON P.Pnumber = WO.Pno
where E.DNO = 5
and P.name = 'ProductX'
and WO.Hours > 10

Converting a Join Query into a Sub Query

I'm attempting to write a sub query that wold accomplish the same results as the join query shown below.
SELECT Department_to_major.DNAME
FROM Department_to_major
INNER JOIN Course
ON Department_to_major.Dcode = Course.OFFERING_DEPT
WHERE Course.COURSE_NAME LIKE '%INTRO%'
GROUP BY Department_to_major.DNAME
However each attempt has produced errors.
Is there a way to write this as a sub query?
Hi, You can use below query,
SELECT DNAME FROM Department_to_major WHERE
Dcode IN (SELECT OFFERING_DEPT FROM Course
WHERE COURSE_NAME LIKE '%INTRO%')
You have used GROUP BY clause, but there is no any aggregate function in the query. Is your query works fine?
Here is a way to use a subquery:
SELECT DISTINCT dm.DNAME
FROM Department_to_major dm
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM Course c
WHERE dm.Dcode = c.OFFERING_DEPT AND
c.COURSE_NAME LIKE '%INTRO%'
);
I assume the GROUP BY is to prevent duplicates in the output; SELECT DISTINCT does the same thing.
That said, storing the department code and name in Department_to_major is not a good data structure, because the department name is (presumably) repeated multiple times. I would expect you to have just a Departments table, with one row per department.
Then the query would look like:
SELECT d.DNAME
FROM Departments d
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM Course c
WHERE d.Dcode = c.OFFERING_DEPT AND
c.COURSE_NAME LIKE '%INTRO%'
);
And the SELECT DISTINCT/GROUP BY is unnecessary.
Try the below query. I am assuming that you have used "GROUP BY" clause to make DNAME field unique.
SELECT DISTINCT(DNAME)
FROM Department_to_major
WHERE Dcode IN (SELECT OFFERING_DEPT
FROM Course
WHERE COURSE_NAME LIKE '%INTRO%');

SQL Complex Query w/ Inner Join

I have 2 tables, 1 called Employee and 1 called Salary. Employee table consists of Emp_Name, Emp_Address, Emp_ID & Salary table consists of Salary_Details and Emp_ID. > Can you write down a query for retrieving the Salary_Details of 1 of the employee based on last name using Inner Join?
I am not sure what you are looking for, but this might help you:
SELECT * FROM Employee e
INNER JOIN Salary s ON e.Emp_ID = s.Emp_ID
WHERE e.Emp_Name = 'EMPLOYEENAME'
That will give you back all fields from Employee and Salary for an Employee with the name = 'EMPLOYEENAME' (which you can exchange then).
You can adjust the columns returned as needed depending on your app...
SELECT e.Emp_Name, e.Emp_ID, s.Salary_Details
FROM Employee e
INNER JOIN Salary s USING (Emp_ID)
WHERE e.Emp_Name = 'Smith';
The USING keyword is kind of obscure and works only if the join column is named identically in both tables. The previous answer with ON instead of USING will work in all cases. I like USING as a personal preference.

Left outer join vs subquery to include departments with no employees

Lets say I have the following database model:
And the question is as follows:
List ALL department names and the total number of employees in the department. The total number of employees column should be renamed as "total_emps". Order the list from the department with the least number of employees to the most number of employees. Note: You need to include a department in the list even when the department does not currently have any employee assigned to it.
This was my attempt:
SELECT Department.deptname
(SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM Department
WHERE Department.empno = Employee.empno ) AS total_emps
FROM Department
I'm pretty sure my solution is not correct as it won't include departments with no employees. How do you use a left inner join to solve this problem?
The query as you were trying to write it is:
(table creates modified from shree.pat18's sqlfiddle to this sqlfiddle)
create table department (deptno int, deptname varchar(20));
insert into department values (1, 'a'),(2, 'b'),(3, 'c');
create table employee (empno int, deptno int);
insert into employee values (1,1),(2,1),(3,3);
SELECT d.deptname,
(SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM EMPLOYEE e
WHERE d.deptno = e.deptno ) AS total_emps
FROM DEPARTMENT d
ORDER BY total_emps ASC;
(You were counting from DEPARTMENT instead of EMPLOYEE and comparing empno instead of deptno. And you left out a comma.)
(You were asked for every department's name and employee count so this returns that. In practice we would include a presumably unique deptno if deptname was not unique.)
I'm pretty sure my solution is not correct as it won't include
departments with no employees.
Even your answer's version of the query (with the missing comma added) has an outer select that returns a count for every department no matter what the subselect returns. So I don't know why/how you thought it wouldn't.
If you want to use LEFT (OUTER) JOIN then the DEPARTMENT rows with no employees get extended by NULL. But COUNT of a column only counts non-NULL rows.
SELECT d.deptname, COUNT(e.empno) AS total_emps
FROM DEPARTMENT d
LEFT JOIN EMPLOYEE e
ON d.deptno = e.deptno
GROUP BY d.deptno
ORDER BY total_emps ASC;
(Nb the LEFT JOIN version uses more concepts: LEFT JOIN extending by NULL, GROUP BY, and COUNT's NULL behaviour for non-*.)
First off, it's a left outer join. Now, for your query, you want to join the 2 tables based on deptno, then also group by deptno (or deptname, since that is as likely to be unique) to ensure that any aggregation we do is done for each unique department in the table. Finally, the counting is done with the count function, leading to this query:
select d.deptname, count(e.empno) as total_emps
from department d
left join employee e on d.deptno = e.deptno
group by d.deptname
SQLFiddle
Note that since we want all records from department regardless of whether there are matching records in employee or not, department must appear at the left side of the join. We could have done the same thing using a right outer join by swapping the positions of the 2 tables in the join.

When to use an identifier in SQL queries

I have just been looking at some example database queries, and came across this :
Find the identifier, name & address of employees of the Research department.
Method I: Join Method
SELECT Ssn, FName, LName, Address
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dno = Dnumber
AND Dname = ‘Research’
Method II: Subquery Method
SELECT Ssn, FName, LName, Address
FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE Dno IN
( SELECT Dnumber
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dname = ‘Research’ );
In these examples, why can you not leave out the Dno = Dnumber line? How do you know when to include this?
John, you are using implicit join syntax cf ansi SQL '89.
WHERE JOIN
SELECT Ssn, FName, LName, Address
FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT
WHERE Dno = Dnumber
AND Dname = 'Research'
You should never ever use that because it is confusing as hell.
And it causes a lot of errors because it does a cross join if you're not careful.
The following syntax using explicit joins cf ANSI SQL '92 which is much clearer.
SELECT Ssn, FName, LName, Address
FROM EMPLOYEE
inner join DEPARTMENT on (employee.dnumber = department.dno)
WHERE Dname = 'Research'
This also answers why you cannot leave out the dnumber = dno, because that's the join condition
SUBQUERY
A subquery is really a join by other means.
In general you should avoid a subquery because a join is faster (90% of the time)
Some people find subqueries easier to understand. I would say that if you don't grok joins stay away from SQL!
Still sometimes you're doing something to complex or bizarre for a join and then the subquery is an option.
Back to your question: because the subquery is really a join by other means you need that join condition to make the join :-).
I would actually write something like this.
SELECT
Ssn, FName, LName, Address
FROM
EMPLOYEE
LEFT JOIN
DEPARTMENT ON EMPLOYEE.Dno = DEPARTMENT.Dnumber
WHERE
Dname = "Research"
The Dno = Dnumber is used to bridge the JOIN between the Employee and Department tables. You need it to identify the relationship between tables you are joining.
There are many ways to write JOIN statements.
This is a good tutorial about joins - http://mysqljoin.com/
Each employee belongs to a department. Dno = Dnumber is what defines the relationship between the two. So you have to keep that relationship in your join. Dname = 'Research' further filters to only include Research department employees.
Should you not join Dno to Dnumber, you will wind up with a Cartesian product.
The "Dno = Dnumber" line is the join clause - it tells the query only to include records in the employee table whose Dno matches the department number in the department table.
You use the Dno = Dnumber line to basically create JOIN criteria.
If you didn't use them you'd have a full JOIN
However, I would contend that the correct way to do the JOIN is to actually do
SELECT
EMPLOYEE.[Ssn]
, EMPLOYEE.[FName]
, EMPLOYEE.[LName]
, EMPLOYEE.[Address]
FROM
EMPLOYEE
JOIN
DEPARTMENT
ON DEPARTMENT.[Dnumber] = EMPLOYEE.[Dno]
WHERE
DEPARTMENT.[Dname] = 'Research'
The Dno = Dnumber clause is needed for you to join the two tables. Without this, you'll get what's called a Cartesian join, where you'll get n x m number of rows returned, where n = # rows in the EMPLOYEE table, and m = # rows in the DEPARTMENT table.
You can find a good tutorial on SQL join at http://www.1keydata.com/sql/sqljoins.html.