CSE 480: Database Systems

Lecture 12: SQL (Nested queries and

Aggregate functions)

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NESTED QUERIES

A nested query is specified

within the WHERE-clause of
the outer query

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NESTED QUERIES

 Query: Retrieve the name and address of employees who

work for the 'Research' department

SELECT Fname, Lname, Address

FROM Employee, Department
WHERE Dname='Research' AND Dnumber=Dno;
(Non-nested query approach)

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NESTED QUERIES

 Query: Retrieve the name and address of employees who

work for the 'Research' department

SELECT FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNO IN (SELECT DNUMBER
FROM DEPARTMENT
WHERE DNAME='Research' );
(Nested query approach)
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Example

 Query: List the names of projects that involve an

employee whose last name is 'Smith' as a worker or as a
manager of the department that controls the project

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NESTED QUERIES

 Query: List the names of projects that involve an

employee whose last name is 'Smith' as a worker or as a
manager of the department that controls the project

(SELECT PNAME
FROM PROJECT, DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNUM=DNUMBER AND MGRSSN=SSN
AND LNAME='Smith')
UNION
(SELECT PNAME
FROM PROJECT, WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE
WHERE PNUMBER=PNO AND ESSN=SSN
AND NAME='Smith');

Non-nested query approach

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NESTED QUERIES
 Query: List the names of projects that involve an employee whose
last name is 'Smith' as a worker or as a manager of the department
that controls the project

SELECT PNAME
FROM PROJECT
WHERE PNUMBER IN
(SELECT PNUMBER
FROM PROJECT,DEPARTMENT,EMPLOYEE
WHERE DNUM=DNUMBER AND MGRSSN=SSN
AND LNAME='Smith')
OR
PNUMBER IN
(SELECT PNO
FROM WORKS_ON, EMPLOYEE
WHERE ESSN=SSN AND NAME='Smith')

Nested query approach

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ANY, ALL, SOME

v = ANY W (e.g., Id =ANY (1,2,3))

– evaluates to TRUE if v equals to one of the elements in W

v = SOME W (e.g., Id =SOME (1,2,3))

– evaluates to TRUE if v equals to some elements in W

v > ALL W (e.g., Age >ALL (23,19,34))

– evaluates to TRUE if v is greater than all the elements in W

v < ALL W (e.g., Age <ALL (23,19,34))

– evaluates to TRUE if v is less than all the elements in W

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NESTED QUERIES

 Query: List the names of employees whose salary is

greater than the salary of all managers

SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE SALARY > ALL (SELECT SALARY
FROM DEPARTMENT,EMPLOYEE
WHERE MGRSSN=SSN);

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THE EXISTS FUNCTION

 EXISTS is used to check whether the result of a nested

query is empty (contains no tuples)

SELECT
FROM
WHERE EXISTS V

– WHERE-clause evaluates to TRUE if V is not an empty table and

FALSE otherwise

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THE EXISTS FUNCTION

This query will return the

names of students with
GPA > 3.0

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THE EXISTS FUNCTION
 Query: Retrieve the name of each employee who has a dependent with the same name as the employee’s
first name.

SELEC

SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
Correlated WHERE SSN=ESSN AND
nested query FNAME=DEPENDENT_NAME);

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THE EXISTS FUNCTION

 Query: Retrieve the names of employees who have no

dependents

SELECT FNAME, LNAME

FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM DEPENDENT
WHERE SSN=ESSN);

Correlated nested query because it involves attribute of outer query

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Division Query

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
Student Course Transcript
1234 Adam
2345 Bill CS101 CS 1234 CS101 2.5
3456 Cathy 2345 CS234 3.5
4567 Didi CS234 CS 1234 CS234 4.0
5678 Eva

Result Adam
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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE ? Student has taken ALL
the CS courses

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 Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM Transcript, Course
WHERE Transcript.StudId = Student.Id
AND Transcript.CrsCode = Course.CrsCode
AND Course.Dept = ‘CS’)
This will return names of students who have taken at least 1 CS course
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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE ? Student has taken ALL
the CS courses

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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE ( Equivalent to saying “there
? are no CS courses the
student has not taken”
)

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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
A CS course the
? student has not taken
)

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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT * FROM Course
WHERE Dept = ‘CS’ Student has not taken
AND ? the CS course
)
(Student, course) combination does not exist in Transcript
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Division Query in SQL

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT * FROM Course
WHERE Dept = ‘CS’
AND NOT EXISTS (
SELECT * FROM Transcript
WHERE Transcript.StudId = Student.Id
AND Transcript.Crscode = Course.Crscode
))
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Another Possible Solution

Student (Id, Name)

Course (CrsCode, CrsName, Dept)
Transcript (StudId, CrsCode, Semester, Grade)

Query: Find the names of students who have taken every

course offered by the CS department
SELECT Name
FROM Student
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
SELECT * FROM Course
WHERE Dept = ‘CS’
AND CrsCode NOT IN (
SELECT CrsCode FROM Transcript
WHERE Transcript.StudId = Student.Id)
)

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Division Query

 Retrieve the names of employees who work on every

project controlled by the “Research” department

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Example: Division Query

 Retrieve the names of employees who work on every

project controlled by the “Research” department

SELECT DISTINCT E.Lname, E.Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE E
WHERE NOT EXISTS
(
A project controlled by the Research
department in which the employee had
NOT worked on

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Example: Division Query

 Retrieve the names of employees who work on every

project controlled by the “Research” department

SELECT DISTINCT E.Lname, E.Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE E
WHERE NOT EXISTS
( SELECT P.Pnumber
FROM DEPARTMENT D, PROJECT P
WHERE D.Dnumber = P.Dnum AND D.Dname=‘Research’
AND NOT EXISTS (
(employee,project) combination
in the Works_On table
)
)

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Example: Division Query

 Retrieve the names of employees who work on every

project controlled by the “Research” department

SELECT DISTINCT E.Lname, E.Fname

FROM EMPLOYEE E
WHERE NOT EXISTS
(SELECT P.Pnumber
FROM DEPARTMENT D, PROJECT P
WHERE D.Dnumber = P.Dnum AND D.Dname=‘Research’
AND NOT EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM WORKS_ON W
WHERE W.ESSN=E.SSN AND P.Pnumber=W.Pno))

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Exercise

 Find the names of projects worked on by every employee

in the Research department
– Exclude the projects worked on only by a few but not all
employees in the Research department

 Find the names of employees who work for the Research

department but do not work on all the projects controlled
by the Research department

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Aggregate Functions

 Used to compute summary statistics for a group of tuples

in a table
 Include COUNT, SUM, MAX, MIN, and AVG

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Aggregate Functions

 Need to be careful when dealing with NULL values

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Aggregate Functions

 Query: Find the sum of the salaries, maximum salary, minimum

salary, and average salary of employees in the ‘Research’ department

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Aggregate Functions

 Query: Count the number of employees who work for the 'Research'
department

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Aggregate Functions

 Query: Count the number of employees in department number 3 who

have worked on at least one project

overestimate

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Aggregate Functions

 Query: Count the number of employees in Department number 3

who have worked on at least one project

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Aggregate Functions

Query: Find the id of

employees who have two
or more dependents

Cannot use aggregate function

directly in the WHERE clause

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Aggregate Functions

Query: Find the name of

employees who have two
or more dependents

This is ok

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Grouping Clause

 Suppose we want to apply the aggregate functions to

subgroups of tuples in a relation
– Each subgroup consists of the set of tuples that have the same
value for the grouping attribute(s)

 SQL has a GROUP BY-clause for specifying the grouping

attributes

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Grouping Clause Example

 Query: For each department, retrieve the department

number, the number of employees in the department, and
their average salary.

SELECT DNO, COUNT (*), AVG

(SALARY)
FROM EMPLOYEE
GROUP BY DNO;

– The EMPLOYEE tuples are divided into groups, each group

having the same value for the grouping attribute DNO
 The COUNT and AVG functions are applied to each such group of
tuples separately
 The SELECT-clause includes only the grouping attribute and the
aggregate functions to be applied on each group of tuples

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Grouping Clause Example

Effect of null value

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Grouping Clause Example

 Query: For each project, retrieve the project number, project name,
and the number of employees who work on that project.

In this case, the grouping and

aggregate functions are applied
after joining the two relations

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Grouping Clause Example

 Query: For each project, retrieve the project number, project name,
and number of employees from department 3 who work on the
project

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HAVING Clause

 The HAVING-clause is used to retrieve only groups whose values of

the aggregate functions satisfy certain condition

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HAVING Clause Example

 Query: For each project that has more than one employees work,
retrieve the project number, project name, and the number of
employees who work on that project.

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HAVING Clause Example

 Query: For each project that has more than one employees work on
it, retrieve the project number, project name, and the number of
employees who work on that project.

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HAVING Clause Example

 Query: For each department that has more than 1 employee, retrieve
the department name and the number of employees who are making
more than $50,000

 Answer should be: (Payroll, 1) and (Research, 1)

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HAVING Clause

 Query: For each department that has more than 1 employee, retrieve
the department name and the number of employees who are making
more than $50,000

WRONG! This query looks for departments that have more than
1 employee making more than $50,000

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HAVING Clause

 Query: For each department that has more than 1 employee, retrieve
the department name and the number of employees who are making
more than $50,000

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ORDER BY Clause

 Sort tuples based on the values of some attribute(s)

 Query: Retrieve a list of employees and the projects they

work on, ordered by their department name, and within
each department, ordered alphabetically by last name and
first name.

SELECT Dname, Lname, Fname, Pname

FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, PROJECT
WHERE Dnumber=Dno AND SSN=ESSN
AND Pno=Pnumber
ORDER BY Dname, Lname, Fname;

 The default order is in ascending order of values

– We can also specify the keyword DESC or ASC

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ORDER BY Clause

 Query: Retrieve a list of employees and the projects they

work on, ordered by their department name, and within
each department, ordered alphabetically by salary (in
descending order)

SELECT Dname, Lname, Fname, Pname

FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE, WORKS_ON, PROJECT
WHERE Dnumber=Dno AND SSN=ESSN
AND Pno=Pnumber
ORDER BY Dname ASC, Salary DESC;

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Summary of SQL Queries
SELECT <attribute list>
FROM <table list>
[WHERE <condition>]
[GROUP BY <grouping attribute(s)>]
[HAVING <group condition>]
[ORDER BY <attribute list>]

 SELECT-clause lists the attributes/functions to be retrieved

 FROM-clause specifies all relations (or aliases) needed in the query
but not those needed in nested queries
 WHERE-clause specifies the conditions for selection and join of
tuples from the relations specified in the FROM-clause
 GROUP BY specifies grouping attributes
 HAVING specifies a condition for selection of groups
 ORDER BY specifies an order for displaying the result of a query

 A query is evaluated by first applying the WHERE-clause, then

GROUP BY and HAVING, and finally the SELECT-clause
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Limit (in MySQL)

 Find the name and salary of the highest paid employee

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