Simulate MySQL records using inline data - mysql

This may sound like an odd question, but I'm curious to know if it's possible...
Is there a way to simulate MySQL records using inline data? For instance, if it is possible, I would expect it to work something like this:
SELECT inlinedata.*
FROM (
('Emily' AS name, 26 AS age),
('Paul' AS name, 56 AS age)
) AS inlinedata
ORDER BY age

Unfortunately MySQL does not support the standard values row-constructor for this kind of things, so you need to use a "dummy" select for each row and combine the rows using UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM (
select 'Emily' AS name, 26 AS age
union all
select 'Paul', 56
) AS inlinedata
ORDER BY age
The UNION ALL serves two purposes
It preserves any duplicate you might have on purpose
It's a (tiny) bit faster than a plain UNION (because it does not check for duplicates)

No, not without making it complicated, but you can create a temporary table and query that instead. Temporary tables are deleted when the current client session terminates.
You can query them and insert data into them just like with other tables. When you create them, you have to use the TEMPORARY keyword, like so:
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE ...
This way, you can also reuse the data for multiple queries if needed, no data gets stored, and all records that you query have the right structure (whereas the syntax you give in your example would create problems when you spell a column name wrong)...

with cte as (
select '2012-04-04' as student_dob, '%test1%' as student_pat
union all
select '2012-05-04', '%test2%'
union all
select '2012-07-04', '%test3%'
union all
select '2012-05-11', '%test-n%'
)
select *
from students s
inner join cte c
on s.student_dob = c.student_dob and s.student_name like c.student_pat
arguably that's not a lot more readable, but taking a lead from that, you can just store those in a table or go through temporary table, like Roy suggested.
Also it's not great idea to make a group by student id and select also something else like you did in 2nd query.

Related

Better way to get 15 tables results at a time in MySql

I have about 20 tables. These tables have only id (primary key) and description (varchar). The data is a lot reaching about 400 rows for one table.
Right now I have to get data of at least 15 tables at a time.
Right now I am calling them one by one. Which means that in one session I am giving 15 calls. This is making my process slow.
Can any one suggest any better way to get the results from the database?
I am using MySQL database and using Java Springs on server side. Will making view for all combined help me ?
The application is becoming slow because of this issue and I need a solution that will make my process faster.
It sounds like your schema isn't so great. 20 tables of id/varchar sounds like a broken EAV, which is generally considered broken to begin with. Just the same, I think a UNION query will help out. This would be the "View" to create in the database so you can just SELECT * FROM thisviewyoumade and let it worry about the hitting all the tables.
A UNION query works by having multiple SELECT stataements "Stacked" on top of one another. It's important that each SELECT statement has the same number, ordinal, and types of fields so when it stacks the results, everything matches up.
In your case, it makes sense to manufacturer an extra field so you know which table it came from. Something like the following:
SELECT 'table1' as tablename, id, col2 FROM table1
UNION ALL
SELECT 'table2', id, col2 FROM table2
UNION ALL
SELECT 'table3', id, col2 FROM table3
... and on and on
The names or aliases of the fields in the first SELECT statement are the field names that are used in the result set that is returned, so no worries about doing a bunch AS blahblahblah in subsequent SELECT statements.
The real question is whether this union query will perform faster than 15 individual calls on such a tiny tiny tiny amount of data. I think the better option would be to change your schema so this stuff is already stored in one table just like this UNION query outputs. Then you would need a single select statement against a single table. And 400x20=8000 is still a dinky little table to query.
To get a row of all descriptions into app code in a single roundtrip send a query kind of
select t1.description, ... t15.description
from t -- this should contain all needed ids
join table1 t1 on t1.id = t.t1id
...
join table1 t15 on t15.id = t.t15id
I cannot get you what you really need but here merging all those table values into single table
CREATE TABLE table_name AS (
SELECT *
FROM table1 t1
LEFT JOIN table2 t2 ON t1.ID=t2.ID AND
...
LEFT JOIN tableN tN ON tN-1.ID=tN.ID
)

Why can't I use tuples or ordered pairs in a subquery in MySQL?

Say I want to get the most recent row in a table that has a bunch of records with different IDs.
First, I create a temp table, where I find the most recent rows (grouped by ID of course):
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE
temp1
AS
SELECT DISTINCT ID, max(date) FROM atable GROUP BY ID;
But, since the whole point was to get all the values for these records, I have to join this back to the original table, atable. Annoying, but what can you do.
I really, really want to use a tuple or an order pair. Why can't I do this in MySQL??
SELECT * FROM atable
WHERE (ID, date) IN
(SELECT ID, date FROM temp1);
What is the canonical syntax to do this?
(Further, philosophical question: Why is MySQL so clunky with this? It's been around decades, and nobody have ever implemented something this basic?)
Why can't I do this in MySQL??
You can, but not with IN. The way to match multiple columns is with EXISTS:
SELECT * FROM atable
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT NULL FROM temp1
WHERE temp1.ID = atable.ID AND temp1.date = atable.date);
Note that you could also use your original query as a subquery:
SELECT * FROM atable
WHERE date = (SELECT max(date) FROM atable WHERE ID = atable.ID)
Why is MySQL so clunky with this?
The "standard" use of IN is to find records where one value is contained in a list of other values (e.g. WHERE NAME IN ('Smith', 'Jones'). This has been extended to allow a subquery to provide the list rather than a static list.
If you feel that it's a worthy feature for MySQL to implement (and you seem to think it's very easy) then you can submit a feature request, but since 1) there is another way to accomplish it and 2) it would be non-standard SQL I would be surprised if it got a lot of attention.

SELECT command in mysql

I was wondering if there is a way to do something like selecting all without ... some columns here
something like SELECT */column1,column2 , is there a way to do this ?
I just need to output something like
column1 , column2 ( from another table ) , here all other columns without column1 ( or something to make the select skip the first few columns)
EDIT:
The thing is that i need this to be dynamic , so i cant just select what i don't know. I never know how many columns there will be , i just know the 1st and the 2nd column
EDIT: here is a picture http://oi44.tinypic.com/xgdyiq.jpg
I don't need the second id column , just the last column like i have pointed.
Start building custom views, which are geared aorund saving developers time and encapsulating them from the database schema.
Oh, so select all but certain fields. You have two options.
One is a little slow.. Copy the table, drop the fields you don't want, then SELECT *
The other is to build the field list from a subquery to information_schema or something, then remove occurrences of 'field_i_dont_want' in that list.
SELECT ( SELECT THE TABLES YOU WANT AND CONCAT INTO ONE STRING ) FROM TABLE
If you need to combine records from multiple tables, you need to find a way to relate them together. Primary Keys, Foreign Keys, or anything common among this.
I will try to explain this with a sql similar to your problem.
SELECT table1.id, table2.name, table1.column3, table1.column4
FROM table1
INNER JOIN table2 On table2.commmonfield = table1.commonfield
If you have 'n' columns in your table as in Col1,Col2,Col3....Coln you can select whatever columns you want to select from the table.
SELECT Col1,Col2 FROM YOURTABLE;
You either select all columns (*) or especify the columns you want one by one. There is no way to select 'all but some'.
The SQL language lets you either select a wildcard set of columns or enumerated single columns from a singular table. However you can join a secondary table and get a wildcard there.
SELECT
a.col1,
b.*
FROM
table_a as a
JOIN table_b as b ON (a.col5 = b.col_1)

mysql query two tables, UNION and where clause

I have two tables.
I query like this:
SELECT * FROM (
Select requester_name,receiver_name from poem_authors_follow_requests as one
UNION
Select requester_name,receiver_name from poem_authors_friend_requests as two
) as u
where (LOWER(requester_name)=LOWER('user1') or LOWER(receiver_name)=LOWER('user1'))
I am using UNION because i want to get distinct values for each user if a user exists in the first table and in the second.
For example:
table1
nameofuser
peter
table2
nameofuser
peter
if peter is on either table i should get the name one time because it exists on both tables.
Still i get one row from first table and a second from table number two. What is wrong?
Any help appreciated.
There are two problems with your SQL:
(THis is not the question, but should be considered) by using WHERE over the UNION instead of the tables, you create a performance nightmare: MySQL will create a temporary table containing the UNION, then query it over the WHERE. Using a calculation on a field (LOWER(requester_name)) makes this even worse.
The reason you get two rows is, that UNION DISTINCT will only suppress real duplicates, so the tuple (someuser,peter) and the tuple (someotheruser, peter) will result in duplication.
Edit
To make (someuser, peter) a duplicate of (peter, someuser) you could use:
SELECT
IF(requester_name='peter', receiver_name, requester_name) AS otheruser
FROM
...
UNION
SELECT
IF(requester_name='peter', receiver_name, requester_name) AS otheruser
FROM
...
So you only select someuser which you already know : peter
You need the where clause on both selects:
select requester_name, receiver_name
from poem_authors_follow_requests
where LOWER(requester_name) = LOWER('user1') or LOWER(receiver_name) = LOWER('user1')
union
select requester_name, receiver_name
from poem_authors_friend_requests
where LOWER(requester_name) = LOWER('user1') or LOWER(receiver_name) = LOWER('user1')
The two queries are independent of each other, so you shouldn't try to connect them other than by union.
You can use UNION if you want to select rows one after the other from several tables or several sets of rows from a single table all as a single result set.
UNION is available as of MySQL 4.0. This section illustrates how to use it.
Suppose you have two tables that list prospective and actual customers, a third that lists vendors from whom you purchase supplies, and you want to create a single mailing list by merging names and addresses from all three tables. UNION provides a way to do this. Assume the three tables have the following contents:
http://w3webtutorial.blogspot.com/2013/11/union-in-mysql.html
You are doing the union before and then applying the where clause. So you would get a unique combination of "requester_name,receiver_name" and then the where clause would apply. Apply the where clause in each select...
Select requester_name,receiver_name from poem_authors_follow_requests
where (LOWER(requester_name)=LOWER('user1')
or LOWER(receiver_name)=LOWER('user1'))
UNION
Select requester_name,receiver_name from poem_authors_friend_requests
where (LOWER(requester_name)=LOWER('user1')
or LOWER(receiver_name)=LOWER('user1'))
In your where statement, reference the alias "u" for each field refence in your where statement.
So the beginning of your where statement would be like: where (LOWER(u.requester_name) = ...
This is simlar to the answer you can see in: WHERE statement after a UNION in SQL?
You should be able to use the INTERSECT keyword instead of doing a nested query on a UNION.
SELECT member_id, name FROM a
INTERSECT
SELECT member_id, name FROM b
can simply be rewritten to
SELECT a.member_id, a.name
FROM a INNER JOIN b
USING (member_id, name)
http://www.bitbybit.dk/carsten/blog/?p=71

multi row "dual" table in mysql/sql

This is an extension of the "dual" table concept (temporary table created on the fly for one query and discarded straight after)
I am trying to join a multi row dual table with another one, so as to avoid to have to run the same query several times with different parameters, using 1 statement.
One of the issue I am having is that union is very slow for dual tables, and I am unaware of any more efficient way to accomplish the following. (100 ms when joining 50 dual together)
SELECT
b.id,
b.ref_unid,
a.date
FROM
(
SELECT
'b8518a84-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168' as unid,
'2010-01-05' as date
UNION
SELECT
'b853a1f2-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168',
'2010-01-06'
UNION
SELECT
'b8557bd0-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168',
'2010-01-07'
/* ... */
) as a
join other_table b
ON
b.ref_unid = a.unid
Is there another way of accomplishing this goal?
Is there any syntax similar to that of insert into values statement that would accomplish that goal, such as:
SELECT
unid,
id
FROM
(
WITH (unid, date) USING VALUES
(
('b8518a84-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168','2010-01-05'),
('b853a1f2-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168','2010-01-06'),
('b8557bd0-c501-11dd-b0b6-001d7dc91168','2010-01-07'),
/* ... */
)
) as a
join other_table b
ON
b.ref_unid = a.unid
I'm looking for a 1-statement solution. Multiple trips to the database aren't possible.
There's no other convention I'm aware of that's available in MySQL to construct a derived table in a single statement. If this dealt with a single column, at ~50 values it could be converted to use an IN clause.
The best performing approach is to load the data into a table of one form or another -- in MySQL, for a temporary use I'd recommend using the MEMORY engine. At ~50 tuples, I have to wonder why the data isn't already in the database...