Is there an easy SELECT-Statement that creates an empty set? - mysql

Is there an easy and simple way to create a result table that has specified columns but zero rows? In set theory this is called an empty set, but since relational databases use multidimensional sets the term doesn't fit perfectly. I have tried these two queries, but both deliver exactly one row and not zero rows:
SELECT '' AS ID;
SELECT null AS ID;
But what I want is the same result as this query:
SELECT ID FROM sometable WHERE false;
I'm searching for a more elegant way because I don't want to have a table involved, so the query is independent from any database scheme. Also a generic query might be a bit faster (not that it would matter for such a query).

SELECT "ID" LIMIT 0;
Without any real tables.
Do note that most (My)SQL clients simply will display "Empty set". However, it actually does what you want:
create table test.test_table
select "ID" limit 0;
show create table test.test_table\G
Table: test_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `test_table` (
`ID` varchar(2) character set latin1 NOT NULL default ''
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_bin

SELECT * FROM (SELECT NULL AS ID) AS x WHERE 1 = 0

You can use the DUAL pseudo-table.
SELECT whatever FROM DUAL WHERE 1 = 0
Check the documentation (look for the DUAL section).

Related

MYSQL: How to update unique random number to existing rows

It's been my first question to this website, I'm sorry if I used any wrong keywords. I have been with one problem from quite a few days.
The Problem is, I have a MYSQL table named property where I wanted to add a ref number which will be a unique 6 digit non incremental number so I alter the table to add a new column named property_ref which has default value as 1.
ALTER TABLE property ADD uniqueIdentifier INT DEFAULT (1) ;
Then I write a script to first generate a number then checking it to db if exist or not and If not exist then update the row with the random number
Here is the snippet I tried,
with cte as (
select subIdentifier, id from (
SELECT id, LPAD(FLOOR(RAND() * (999999 - 100000) + 100000), 6, 0) AS subIdentifier
FROM property as p1
WHERE "subIdentifier" NOT IN (SELECT uniqueIdentifier FROM property as p2)
) as innerTable group by subIdentifier
)
UPDATE property SET uniqueIdentifier = (
select subIdentifier from cte as c where c.id = property.id
) where property.id != ''
this query returns a set of record for almost all the rows but I have a table of entries of total 20000,
but this query fills up for ~19000 and rest of the rows are null.
here is a current output
[current result picture]
If anyone can help, I am extremely thanks for that.
Thanks
Instead of trying to randomly generate unique numbers that do not exist in the table, I would try the approach of randomly generating numbers using the ID column as a seed; as long as the ID number is unique, the new number will be unique as well. This is not technically fully "random" but it may be sufficient for your needs.
https://www.db-fiddle.com/f/iqMPDK8AmdvAoTbon1Yn6J/1
update Property set
UniqueIdentifier = round(rand(id)*1000000)
where UniqueIdentifier is null
SELECT id, round(rand(id)*1000000) as UniqueIdentifier FROM test;

MySql Basic table creation/handing

I'm trying to create a simple table where I insert field and I do some checks in MySql. I've used Microsoft SQL relatively easy. Instead, MySql give evrrytime query errors without even specifying what's going on. Poor MySql software design apart, here's what I'm trying to do:
1 table with 4 fields with an autoincremental autogenerated number to det an ID as primary key
CREATE TABLE `my_db`.`Patients_table` (
`ID_Patient` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`Patient_name` VARCHAR( 200 ) NOT NULL ,
`Recovery_Date` DATETIME NOT NULL ,
`Recovery_count` INT NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM
a simple stored procedure to insert such fields and check if something exist before inserting:
CREATE PROCEDURE nameInsert(IN nome, IN data)
INSERT INTO Patients_table (Patient_name,Recovery_Date) values (nome,data)
IF (EXISTS (SELECT Recovery_count FROM Tabella_nomi) = 0) THEN
INSERT INTO (Patients_table (Recovery_count)
ELSE
SET Recovery_count = select Recovery_count+1 from Patients_table
END
this seems wrong on many levels and MySQL useless syntax checker does not help.
How can I do this? Thanks.
There seems to be a lot wrong with this block of code. (No offense intended!)
First, Procedures need to be wrapped with BEGIN and END:
CREATE PROCEDURE nameInsert(IN nome, IN data)
BEGIN
...[actually do stuff here]
END
Second, since your table is declared with all fields as NOT NULL, you must insert all fields with an INSERT statement (this includes the Recovery_Date column, and excludes the AUTO_INCREMENT column). You can add DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP to the date column if you want it to be set automatically.
INSERT INTO Patients_table (Patient_name,Recovery_Date) values (nome,data)
Third, what exactly is your IF predicate doing?
EXISTS (SELECT Recovery_count FROM Tabella_nomi) = 0
If you want to check if a row exists, don't put the = 0 at the end. Also, Tabella_nomi isn't declared anywhere in that procedure. Also, your SELECT statement should have a WHERE clause, since I'm assuming you want to select a specific row (this is going to select a result set of all recovery_counts).
Fourth, the second INSERT statement seems a little messy. It should look more like the first INSERT, and keep the point I made above in mind.
INSERT INTO (Patients_table (Recovery_count)
Fifth, the ELSE statement
SET Recovery_count = select Recovery_count+1 from Patients_table
Has some problems too. SET is meant for setting variables, not values in rows. I'm not 100% sure what your intent is from this statement, but it looks like you meant to increment the Recovery_count column of a certain row if it already exists. In which case, you meant to do something like this:
UPDATE Patients_table SET Recovery_count = Recovery_count+1 WHERE <conditional predicate>
Where the conditional predicate is something like this:
Patients_name = nome
Try these things, and look at the errors it gives you when you try to execute the CREATE STATEMENT. I bet they're more useful then you think!

MySQL INSERT Using Subquery with COUNT() on the Same Table

I'm having trouble getting an INSERT query to execute properly, and I can't seem to find anything on Google or Stack Overflow that solves this particular issue.
I'm trying to create a simple table for featured entries, where the entry_id is saved to the table along with it's current order.
My desired output is this:
If the featured table currently has these three entries:
featured_id entry_id featured_order
1 27 0
2 54 1
4 23 2
I want the next entry to save with featured_order=3.
I'm trying to get the following query to work with no luck:
INSERT INTO `featured`
(
`entry_id`, `featured_order`
)
VALUES
(
200,
(SELECT COUNT(*) AS `the_count` FROM `featured`)
)
The error I'm getting is: You can't specify target table 'featured' for update in FROM clause.
Can anyone help with a solution that gets the count without causing an error?
Thanks in advance!
Here is a cool thing: MySQL's INSERT . . . SELECT:
INSERT INTO `featured`
(
`entry_id`, `featured_order`
)
SELECT 200, COUNT(*) + 1
FROM `featured`
No subquery required.
#Bohemian has a good point:
Better to use max(featured_order) + 1 if you use this approach
So a better query would probably be:
INSERT INTO `featured`
(
`entry_id`, `featured_order`
)
SELECT 200, MAX(`featured_order`) + 1
FROM `featured`
His trigger method describe in his answer is also a good way to accomplish what you want.
The potential problem with query 1 is if you ever delete a row the rank will be thrown off, and you'll have a duplicate in featured_order. With the second query this is not a problem, but you will have gaps, just as if you were using an auto-increment column.
If you absolutely must have an order with no gaps the best solution I know of is to run this series of queries:
SET #pos:=0;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS temp1;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp1 LIKE featured;
ALTER TABLE featured ORDER BY featured_order ASC;
INSERT INTO temp1 (featured_id, entry_id, featured_order)
SELECT featured_id, entry_id, #pos:=#pos+1 FROM words;
UPDATE featured
JOIN temp1 ON featured.featured_id = temp1.featured_id
SET featured.rank = temp1.rank;
DROP TABLE temp1;
Whenever you delete a row
Use a trigger:
drop trigger if exists featured_insert_trigger;
delimiter //
create trigger featured_insert_trigger before insert on featured
for each row
begin
set new.featured_order = ifnull((select max(featured_order) from featured), -1) + 1;
end; //
delimiter ;
Now your inserts look like this:
insert into featured (entry_id) values (200);
featured_order will be set to the highest featured_order value plus one. This caters for rows being deleted/updated and always guarantee uniqueness.
The ifnull is there in case there are no rows in the table, in which case the first value will be zero.
This code has been tested as works correctly.
INSERT INTO `featured`
(
`entry_id`, `featured_order`
)
VALUES
(
200,
(SELECT COUNT(*) AS `the_count` FROM `featured` F1)
)
Correction is just adding "F1" table alias.
This standard sql solution works fine on various dbms (not only mysql)
I also suggest an improvement over:
SELECT COUNT(*) +1 (Problem: if some row gets deleted you may collide with existing index)
SELECT MAX(featured_order)+1 (Problem: the first insert with empty table gets error)
SELECT (COALESCE(MAX(featured_order), 0)+1) (no Problem)
You have to simpley use alias that will solve the problem :
INSERT INTO `featured`
(
`entry_id`, `featured_order`
)
VALUES
(
200,
(SELECT COUNT(*) AS `the_count` FROM `featured` as f1)
)
From the MySQL manual regarding subqueries:
Another restriction is that currently you cannot modify a table and select from the same table in a subquery.
Perhaps an alias or a join (otherwise useless) in the subquery would help here.
EDIT: It turns out that there's a work-around. The work-around is described http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2006/06/23/how-to-select-from-an-update-target-in-mysql/.

SQL - How to find index

I am using MySQL 5.0.
I have table with following structure and data.
CREATE TABLE `test`
(
`text1` varchar(100) NOT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
INSERT INTO `test` (`text1`)
VALUES ('ABC'), ('PQR'), ('XYZ'), ('LMN');
I want to display following output:
Index Text
1 ABC
2 LMN
3 PQR
4 XYZ
In table structure, I don't want to create any new column.
How can I write a SQL query or a stored procedure to accomplish this?
Thanks in advance.
This will not answer your question, but you should really reconsider what you are asking for.
There are no index. You can print a number for each row in your application code, but that number would be meaningless. Without an actual index field in your table, you can't be sure what each number means. For example, if two users remove row "2" simultaneously, both LMN and PQR may be deleted. This is unexpected and dangerous.
You are also not guaranteed to get the rows in the same order each time you do a query if you lack an ORDER BY clause.
SET #row=0;
SELECT #row := #row + 1 AS Index, text1 as Text FROM test;
select #rownum:=#rownum+1 Id, text1
from test, (SELECT #rownum:=0) r
order by text

MySQL inserting data only if table doesn't exist

Using strictly SQL (no PHP or anything else), is it possible to create a table and insert default data into that table only if that table doesn't exist?
Use the CREATE TABLE ... SELECT format:
create table if not exists tablename as
select * from defaultdata;
Here is one way of doing it:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS T (
ID int(10) unsigned NOT NULL primary key,
NAME varchar(255) NOT NULL
);
REPLACE INTO T SELECT 1, 'John Doe';
REPLACE INTO T SELECT 2, 'Jane Doe';
REPLACE is a MySQL extension to the SQL standard that either inserts, or deletes and inserts.
You might do a select on the one of the meta data tables
if(not exists select * from whatever_meta where table_name = "whatever)
begin
...
end
You would have to do some research to figure out how exactly...
Can you store the table status as a variable, then use that variable to determine whether to insert data? Ex:
#status = SHOW TABLES LIKE 'my_table';
INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (1,'hello'),(2,'world') WHERE #status <> false;
The problem with Paul Morgan's answer is that it expects data to already exist in another table. Jonas' answer would be extremely resource exhaustive, especially if there's a lot of REPLACES (which are unnecessary if the table exists).
May be I am missing the point but why can't the default data be a set of insert statements...and what one simply needs to do is create the table if it does not exist followed by insert statements...that ways the default data does not have to exist in a different table.