SQL Pattern Matching Examples - Read Me

This document provides an overview of SQL pattern matching in Oracle Database 12c. It discusses prerequisites for running examples, including accessing the database and downloading scripts. The document then outlines four main steps for SQL pattern matching: 1) bucketing and ordering data, 2) defining patterns, 3) defining measures, and 4) controlling output. Setup instructions are provided to run scripts that create tables and views for tutorial examples.

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SQL Pattern Matching Examples - Read Me

Uploaded by

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SQL Pattern Matching Examples

Prerequisites

Have access to Oracle Database 12c with SYS user with SYSDBA privilege and
OS authentication (so that you can execute the sqlplus / as sysdba command.)

Examples create additional tables and views within the PMUSER user schema.

Have downloaded and the SQL scripts (which is in the Scripts subdirectory of this
tutorial) into a working directory.

Navigate to your working directory and execute all files from that location.

Execute the tutorial setup which requires access to the PMUSER user.

Assumptions
This tutorial assumes the following:
1 - you have run all the associated setup scripts (contained in the Setup folder) before
trying to execute any of the SQL scripts. The SQL commands incementally add new
features and functions, however, it is not necessary to complete/run each script. Each
script works in isolation so you do need to work through an entire topic before going to
another one.

Purpose
This tutorial covers the new 12c SQL pattern matching feature. This new inter-row
pattern search capability complements the already existing capabilities of regular
expressions that match patterns within character strings of a single record. The 12c
MATCH_RECOGNIZE feature allows the definition of patterns, in terms of characters or
sets of characters, and provides the ability to search for those patterns across row
boundaries.

Overview of keywords used in the pattern matching

This section provides an overview of the most important keywords that make up the
MATCH_RECOGNIZE clause and the keywords are organized according to the four
steps outlined above.

Step 1: Bucket and order the data

The bucketing and ordering of data are controlled by the keywords PARTITION BY and
ORDER BY.
PARTITION BY - This clause divides the data into logical groups so that you can search
within each group for the required pattern. PARTITION BY is an optional clause and is
typically followed by the ORDER BY claus. The order of the data is very important as
this controls the visibility of the pattern we are searching for within the data set. The
MATCH_RECOGNIZE feature uses the ORDER BY clause to organize the data so that
it is possible to test across row boundaries for the existence of a sequence of rows
within the overall stream of events:

Step 2: Define the pattern

The PATTERN clause makes use of regular expressions to define the criteria for a
specific pattern (or patterns). The subsequent syntax clause DEFINE is used to define
the associated pattern variables.
PATTERN - In this section you define three basic elements:

the pattern variables that must be matched

the sequence in which they must be matched

the frequency of patterns that must be matched

The PATTERN clause depends on pattern variables which means you must have a
clause to define these variables and this is done using the DEFINE clause. It is a

required clause and is used to specify the conditions that a row must meet to be
mapped to a specific pattern variable.

Step 3: Define the measures

This section allows you to define the output measures that are derived from the
evaluation of an expression or calculated by evaluating an expression related to a
particular match. Measures can be individual data points within a pattern such as start
or end values, aggregations of the event row set such as average or count, or SQL
pattern matching specific values such as a pattern variable identifier. Note that it is
important to look at the measures in the context of how to retrieve the rows that match
the specified pattern since there could be multiple occurrences of an event within a
pattern. For example, in the pattern above there could be multiple DOWN events before
the bottom of the V is reached. Therefore, the developer needs to determine which
event they want to include in the output the first, last, minimum or maximum value. It is
important to be very precise when defining measures to ensure the correct, or expected,
element is returned.

Step 4: Controlling the output

When patterns are identified in streams of rows you sometimes want the ability to report
summary information (for each pattern) in other cases you will need to report the
detailed information. The ability to generate summaries as part of this process is very
important. The PER MATCH clause can create either summary data or detailed data
about the matches and these two types of output are controlled by the following key
phrases:

ONE ROW PER MATCH - each match produces one summary row and this is the
default.

ALL ROWS PER MATCH - a match spanning multiple rows will produce one
output row for each row in the match.

Setup

Set up the tutorial by running the following scripts. These scripts do not form part of the
tutorial, they create the PMUSER additional tables and views used by the scripts.

1_create_PM_user.sql

2_Setup_ticker_table.sql

3_Setup_sessionization.sql

Exercises
There is an additional readme.md file in the "Scripts" directory that will provide you with
more information about how to run each set of examples.