Order MySQL table by two columns of equal importance - mysql

I have a two player game which stores scores in a table.
I want to select high scores from the table, this is my current code:
SELECT * FROM games
ORDER BY GREATEST(player1Score,player2Score) DESC
LIMIT 10
The problem is it only returns one instance of each row, even if for example the lower of the two scores in row 1 warrants inclusion in the top 10.

Use UNION ALL:
SELECT col1, col2, col3, player1Score AS score FROM games
UNION ALL
SELECT col1, col2, col3, player2Score AS score FROM games
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10
Also, don't use SELECT *. List the columns explicitly.

( SELECT *, player1Score as score
FROM games
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10
)
UNION ALL
( SELECT *, player2Score AS score
FROM games
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10
)
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10

You would probably be better off creating a players table and a join table (even though there are only two users). Then you could easily create a query to do what you're trying to do. Of course, it will take a little bit to alter your update/save functions to match the new schema.
players
-----
playerId
playerName
joinPlayerGame
-----
joinId
playerId
gameId
games
-----
modify the player score fields to just be 'score'
SELECT g.*, p.playerName FROM players p INNER JOIN joinPlayerGame j ON j.playerId = p.playerId INNER JOIN games g ON g.<whatever your key is> = j.gameId ORDER BY g.score DESC LIMIT 10
I hope that helps, good luck!

Related

MySQL grouping with detail

I have a table that looks like this...
user_id, match_id, points_won
1 14 10
1 8 12
1 12 80
2 8 10
3 14 20
3 2 25
I want to write a MYSQL script that pulls back the most points a user has won in a single match and includes the match_id in the results - in other words...
user_id, match_id, max_points_won
1 12 80
2 8 10
3 2 25
Of course if I didn't need the match_id I could just do...
select user_id, max(points_won)
from table
group by user_id
But as soon as I add match_id to the "select" and "group by" I have a row for every match, and if I only add the match_id to the "select" (and not the "group by") then it won't correctly relate to the points_won.
Ideally I don't want to do the following either because it doesn't feel particularly safe (e.g. if the user has won the same amount of points on multiple matches)...
SELECT t.user_id, max(t.points_won) max_points_won
, (select t2.match_id
from table t2
where t2.user_id = t.user_id
and t2.points_won = max_points_won) as 'match_of_points_maximum'
FROM table t
GROUP BY t.user_id
Are there any more elegant options for this problem?
This is harder than it needs to be in MySQL. One method is a bit of a hack but it works in most circumstances. That is the group_concat()/substring_index() trick:
select user_id, max(points_won),
substring_index(group_concat(match_id order by points_won desc), ',', 1)
from table
group by user_id;
The group_concat() concatenates together all the match_ids, ordered by the points descending. The substring_index() then takes the first one.
Two important caveats:
The resulting expression has a type of string, regardless of the internal type.
The group_concat() uses an internal buffer, whose length -- by default -- is 1,024 characters. This default length can be changed.
You can use the query:
select user_id, max(points_won)
from table
group by user_id
as a derived table. Joining this to the original table gets you what you want:
select t1.user_id, t1.match_id, t2.max_points_won
from table as t1
join (
select user_id, max(points_won) as max_points_won
from table
group by user_id
) as t2 on t1.user_id = t2.user_id and t1.points_won = t2.max_points_won
I think you can optimize your query by add limit 1 in the inner query.
SELECT t.user_id, max(t.points_won) max_points_won
, (select t2.match_id
from table t2
where t2.user_id = t.user_id
and t2.points_won = max_points_won limit 1) as 'match_of_points_maximum'
FROM table t
GROUP BY t.user_id
EDIT : only for postgresql, sql-server, oracle
You could use row_number :
SELECT USER_ID, MATCH_ID, POINTS_WON
FROM
(
SELECT user_id, match_id, points_won, row_number() over (partition by user_id order by points_won desc) rn
from table
) q
where q.rn = 1
For a similar function, have a look at Gordon Linoff's answer or at this article.
In your example, you partition your set of result per user then you order by points_won desc to obtain highest winning point first.

Get top players from the MySQL table

I have table in MySQL DB which contains among other things two fields user_id and score. This table is kind of log table so there can be multiple rows for one user_id with different scores. How can I get only top 10 users with highest score from this table?
SELECT DISTINCT user_id
FROM your_table
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10
EDIT:
SELECT DISTINCT *
FROM your_table
WHERE (user_id, score) IN (SELECT user_id, MAX(score) AS score
FROM your_table
GROUP BY user_id)
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 10
SqlFiddleDemo
This is basic and you should put more effort; here is atemplate you can use -
SELECT TOP 10 distinct *
FROM people
WHERE names='SMITH'
ORDER BY names asc

Select sum of top three scores for each user

I am having trouble writing a query for the following problem. I have tried some existing queries but cannot get the results I need.
I have a results table like this:
userid score timestamp
1 50 5000
1 100 5000
1 400 5000
1 500 5000
2 100 5000
3 1000 4000
The expected output of the query is like this:
userid score
3 1000
1 1000
2 100
I want to select a top list where I have n best scores summed for each user and if there is a draw the user with the lowest timestamp is highest. I really tried to look at all old posts but could not find one that helped me.
Here is what I have tried:
SELECT sum(score) FROM (
SELECT score
FROM results
WHERE userid=1 ORDER BY score DESC LIMIT 3
) as subquery
This gives me the results for one user, but I would like to have one query that fetches all in order.
This is a pretty typical greatest-n-per-group problem. When I see those, I usually use a correlated subquery like this:
SELECT *
FROM myTable m
WHERE(
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM myTable mT
WHERE mT.userId = m.userId AND mT.score >= m.score) <= 3;
This is not the whole solution, as it only gives you the top three scores for each user in its own row. To get the total, you can use SUM() wrapped around that subquery like this:
SELECT userId, SUM(score) AS totalScore
FROM(
SELECT userId, score
FROM myTable m
WHERE(
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM myTable mT
WHERE mT.userId = m.userId AND mT.score >= m.score) <= 3) tmp
GROUP BY userId;
Here is an SQL Fiddle example.
EDIT
Regarding the ordering (which I forgot the first time through), you can just order by totalScore in descending order, and then by MIN(timestamp) in ascending order so that users with the lowest timestamp appears first in the list. Here is the updated query:
SELECT userId, SUM(score) AS totalScore
FROM(
SELECT userId, score, timeCol
FROM myTable m
WHERE(
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM myTable mT
WHERE mT.userId = m.userId AND mT.score >= m.score) <= 3) tmp
GROUP BY userId
ORDER BY totalScore DESC, MIN(timeCol) ASC;
and here is an updated Fiddle link.
EDIT 2
As JPW pointed out in the comments, this query will not work if the user has the same score for multiple questions. To settle this, you can add an additional condition inside the subquery to order the users three rows by timestamp as well, like this:
SELECT userId, SUM(score) AS totalScore
FROM(
SELECT userId, score, timeCol
FROM myTable m
WHERE(
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM myTable mT
WHERE mT.userId = m.userId AND mT.score >= m.score
AND mT.timeCol <= m.timeCol) <= 3) tmp
GROUP BY userId
ORDER BY totalScore DESC, MIN(timeCol) ASC;
I am still working on a solution to find out how to handle the scenario where the userid, score, and timestamp are all the same. In that case, you will have to find another tiebreaker. Perhaps you have a primary key column, and you can choose to take a higher/lower primary key?
Query for selecting top three scores from table.
SELECT score FROM result
GROUP BY id
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 3;
Can you please try this?
SELECT score FROM result GROUP BY id ORDER BY score DESC, timestamp ASC LIMIT 3;
if 2 users have same score then it will set order depends on time.
You can use a subquery
SELECT r.userid,
( SELECT sum(r2.score)
FROM results r2
WHERE r2.userid = r.userid
ORDER BY score DESC
LIMIT 3
) as sub
FROM result r
GROUP BY r.userid
ORDER BY sub desc
You should do it like this
SELECT SUM(score) as total, min(timestamp) as first, userid FROM scores
GROUP BY userid
ORDER BY total DESC, first ASC
This is way more efficient than sub queries. If you want to extract more fields than userid, then you need to add them to the group by.
This will of cause not limit the number of scores pr user, which indeed seems to require a subquery to solve.

SQL query to return the three highest values for one column "grouped" by another column

Let's say I have a table like this:
Player Score
A 5
B 4
A 3
B 2
A 1
B 1
A 2
B 3
A 4
B 5
I need an SQL query that will return the three highest scores per player in descending order "grouped" by player i.e.
Player Score
A 5
A 4
A 3
B 5
B 4
B 3
Very grateful for any pointers.
This is old-fashioned (read: basic sql) way of producing top-n per group. You might join the table to itself on group condition (here it is player) and pick records with higher score on right side; if there are three or less such records, the row is one of top n rows per group.
select player.player, player.score
from Player
left join Player p2
on p2.player = player.player
and p2.score > player.score
group by player.player, player.score
having count(distinct p2.score) < 3
order by 1, 2 desc
Alternative version you might check, using not exists:
select player, score
from player
where not exists
(
select p2.player
from Player p2
where p2.player = player.player
and p2.score > player.score
group by p2.player
having count(distinct p2.score) > 3
)
order by 1, 2 desc
This two versions differ in presentation of ties - while first one returns one row (by nature of group by) and needs to be joined back to original table to show all records, second one works directly from original table showing all data and ties at once.
You can find Demo at Sql Fiddle.
in SQL server:
select p.player, p.score
from PS p
where p.score in (select top 3 score from PS
where player = p.player order by score desc)
order by p.player asc, p.score desc
in MySql:
select p.player, p.score
from PS p
where p.score in (select score from PS
where player = p.player order by score desc limit 3)
order by p.player asc, p.score desc
I think what you are looking for can be found here:
http://www.sql-ex.ru/help/select16.php
Basically, the best solution uses the RANK function. Here is the example code from the site:
SELECT maker, model, type FROM
(
SELECT maker, model, type, RANK() OVER(PARTITION BY type ORDER BY model) num
FROM Product
) X
WHERE num <= 3
You would just need to modify the Partition By section to order by your score in descending order.
EDIT
Based upon the information that you will be using MySQL, you will need to make some modifications to the above query (which works with Microsoft SQL). You need to replace the RANK function with your own RANK implementation. It isn't that hard. Complete instructions can be found here:
http://thinkdiff.net/mysql/how-to-get-rank-using-mysql-query/
That will show you how to implement a counter that can give you a rank number.
Depending on what DBMS you use, you may be able to use row_number in some form
In SQL Server 2008 you can use
create table #player
( Player char, Score int )
insert into #player (Player, Score) Values
('A',5),('B',4),('A',3),('B',2),('A',1),('B',1),('A',2),('B',3),('A',4),('B',5)
select * from #player
select Player, Score from
(
select *, ROW_NUMBER() over(partition by Player order by Score desc) as rowNo
from #player
) as tmp
where tmp.rowNo <= 3
drop table #player

Selecting sum of single column depending on two columns on same table

I have a table very similar to the one below. p1 and p2 on the table refer to id of player on an another table.
id score p1 p2 date
-- ----- -- -- ----
1 12 1 2 2011.10.21
2 23 3 4 2011.10.22
3 21 1 3 2011.10.23
4 35 5 1 2011.10.24
5 11 2 3 2011.10.25
What I want to do is the get the player id (p1 or p2) with highest score. My solution is something like select sum(score) but I can't form a query because a player may appear in both p1 or p2 columns.
Also a bigger problem is when I want to sort scores from highest to lowest. I dont know what to do. How can I sum and sort a score if I need to group to separate columns? The result I want is similar to this output:
pID score times_played
--- ----- ------------
1 68 3
3 55 3
5 35 1
2 23 2
4 23 1
Is my database design flawed? If there is a more intelligent way I'd like to know. Should I need seperate single queries so I can merge them on PHP or something?
Any help would be appreciated.
Cheers.
PS: I couldnt think a nice subject. Feel free to edit.
You can put the players in one column as so:
select id, score, p1 as player, date from yourtable
union all
select id, score, p2 as player, date from yourtable
You now have players in one column. You can do this to get the score sum for all players
select sum(score), player from (
select id, score, p1 as player, date from yourtable
union all
select id, score, p2 as player, date from yourtable
) group by player
Now, you say that you also want to know how many times the player played and sort them in descending order:
select sum(score), player, count(*) as timesPlayed from (
select id, score, p1 as player, date from yourtable
union all
select id, score, p2 as player, date from yourtable
) group by player order by sum(score) desc
Try this to get players with highest score (disregarding ties)
select id,p1,p2
from table t1
join (select max(score) as MaxS) xx on xx.MaxS = t1.Score
limit 1
To get player total score, try this
select Player as pID,Sum(tot) as Score, count(*) as TimesPlayed
from
(
select p1 as Player,sum(score) as Tot
from table
group by p1
union all
select p2,sum(score)
from table
group by p2
) xx
Group by xx.Player
order by Score desc
Alternatively to using UNION (ALL) on the table, you could try something like this:
SELECT
CASE p.PlayerNumber WHEN 1 THEN t.p1 ELSE t.p2 END AS pID,
SUM(t.score) AS score,
COUNT(*) AS times_played
FROM atable t
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 1 AS PlayerNumber UNION ALL SELECT 2) p
GROUP BY
pID /* this is probably MySQL-specific; most, if not all, other major
database systems would require repeating the entire pID expression here, i.e.
GROUP BY
CASE p.PlayerNumber WHEN 1 THEN t.p1 ELSE t.p2 END
*/
ORDER BY
score DESC,
times_played DESC /* this is based on your result set;
you might want to omit it or change it to ASC */
UPDATE, in an answer to a question in the comments: joining the result set to the user table:
SELECT
`user`.*, /* you should probably specify
the necessary columns explicitly */
totals.score,
totals.times_played
FROM `user` u
INNER JOIN (
SELECT
CASE p.PlayerNumber WHEN 1 THEN t.p1 ELSE t.p2 END AS pID,
SUM(t.score) AS score,
COUNT(*) AS times_played
FROM atable t
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 1 AS PlayerNumber UNION ALL SELECT 2) p
GROUP BY
pID
) totals ON user.id = totals.pID
ORDER BY
totals.score DESC,
totals.times_played DESC