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SQL: The Query Language (Part III)

This document discusses SQL's GROUP BY and HAVING clauses. GROUP BY partitions tuples into groups based on attributes in the grouping list. HAVING filters groups. Aggregate functions like MIN can find the youngest sailor per rating level. ORDER BY sorts result tuples. Null values complicate queries by requiring three-valued logic to handle unknown/nonexistent values. SQL provides more expressive power than relational algebra with features like aggregation, arithmetic, sorting, and grouping.

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40 views9 pages

SQL: The Query Language (Part III)

This document discusses SQL's GROUP BY and HAVING clauses. GROUP BY partitions tuples into groups based on attributes in the grouping list. HAVING filters groups. Aggregate functions like MIN can find the youngest sailor per rating level. ORDER BY sorts result tuples. Null values complicate queries by requiring three-valued logic to handle unknown/nonexistent values. SQL provides more expressive power than relational algebra with features like aggregation, arithmetic, sorting, and grouping.

Uploaded by

Keerthana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SQL: The Query Language (Part III)

GROUP BY and HAVING


 So far, we’ve applied aggregate operators to all
(qualifying) tuples. Sometimes, we want to apply
them to each of several groups of tuples.
 Consider: Find the age of the youngest sailor for each
rating level.
– In general, we don’t know how many rating levels
exist, and what the rating values for these levels are!
– Suppose we know that rating values go from 1 to 10;
we can write 10 queries that look like this (!):
SELECT MIN (S.age)
For i = 1, 2, ... , 10: FROM Sailors S
WHERE S.rating = i
Queries With GROUP BY and HAVING
SELECT [DISTINCT] target-list
FROM relation-list
WHERE qualification
GROUP BY grouping-list
HAVING group-qualification
 The target-list contains (i) attribute names (ii) terms
with aggregate operations (e.g., MIN (S.age)).
– The attribute list (i) must be a subset of grouping-list.
Intuitively, each answer tuple corresponds to a group, and
these attributes must have a single value per group. (A
group is a set of tuples that have the same value for all
attributes in grouping-list.)
Conceptual Evaluation

 The cross-product of relation-list is computed, tuples


that fail qualification are discarded, `unnecessary’ fields
are deleted, as before.
 The remaining tuples are partitioned into groups by
the value of attributes in grouping-list.
 The group-qualification is then applied to eliminate
some groups.
 One answer tuple is generated per qualifying group.
Find the age of the youngest sailor with age  18,
for each rating with at least 2 such sailors
sid sname rating age
SELECT S.rating, MIN (S.age)
22 dustin 7 45.0
FROM Sailors S
31 lubber 8 55.5
WHERE S.age >= 18
71 zorba 10 16.0
GROUP BY S.rating
HAVING COUNT (*) > 1
64 horatio 7 35.0
29 brutus 1 33.0
 Only S.rating and S.age are 58 rusty 10 35.0
mentioned in the SELECT, rating age
GROUP BY or HAVING clauses; 1 33.0
other attributes `unnecessary’. 7 45.0 rating
 2nd column of result is 7 35.0 7 35.0
unnamed. (Use AS to name it.) 8 55.5
10 35.0 Answer relation
For each red boat, find the number of
reservations for this boat
SELECT B.bid, COUNT (*) AS rcount
FROM Sailors S, Boats B, Reserves R
WHERE S.sid=R.sid AND R.bid=B.bid AND B.color=‘red’
GROUP BY B.bid

 Grouping over a join of three relations.


 What if we drop Sailors and the condition
involving S.sid?
Sorting a Result
 Names, ages of Sailors, sorted by name:
SELECT sname, age
FROM Sailors
ORDER BY sname
 Same, ordered by age within a name:
SELECT sname, age FROM Sailors ORDER
BY sname, age
 ORDER BY clause evaluated last
Nulls
 Field values in a tuple are sometimes unknown (e.g., a rating
has not been assigned) or nonexistent (e.g., no spouse’s
name).
– SQL provides a special marker null for such situations.
 The presence of null complicates many issues. E.g.:
– Special operators needed to check if field is/is not null.
– Is rating>8 true or false when rating is null? What about AND, OR
and NOT connectives?
– We need a 3-valued logic (true, false and unknown).
– Meaning of constructs must be defined carefully. (e.g., WHERE
clause eliminates rows that don’t evaluate to true.)
– New operators (in particular, outer joins) possible/needed.
Summary

 Relationally complete; in fact, significantly more


expressive power than relational algebra
(aggregates, arithmetic, sorting, grouping, string
matching….)
 Even queries that can be expressed in RA can often
be expressed more naturally in SQL.
 Nulls (unknown or nonexistent) force a 3-valued logic
and odd behavior: Be careful!!!

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