Usage of DISTINCT in reversed int pairs duplicates elimination - postgresql

Question

I have a following question:
create table memorization_word_translation
(
id serial not null
from_word_id integer not null
to_word_id integer not null
);
This table stores pairs of integers, that are often in reverse order, for example:
35 36
35 37
36 35
37 35
37 39
39 37
Question is - if I make a query, for example:
select * from memorization_word_translation
where from_word_id = 35 or to_word_id = 35
I would get
35 36
35 37
36 35 - duplicate of 35 36
37 35 - duplicate of 35 37
How is to use DISTINCT in this example to filter out all duplicates even if they are reversed?
I want to keep it only like this:
35 36
35 37

Answer 1

You can do it with ROW_NUMBER() window function:
select from_word_id, to_word_id
from (
select *,
row_number() over (
partition by least(from_word_id, to_word_id),
greatest(from_word_id, to_word_id)
order by (from_word_id > to_word_id)::int
) rn
from memorization_word_translation
where 35 in (from_word_id, to_word_id)
) t
where rn = 1
See the demo.

Answer 2

demo:db<>fiddle
You could try a it with a small sorting algorithm (here a comparison) in combination with DISTINCT ON.
The DISTINCT ON clause works an arbitrary columns or terms, e.g. on a tuple. This CASE clause sorts the two columns into tuples and removes tied (ordered) ones. The source columns can be returned in your SELECT statement:
select distinct on (
CASE
WHEN (from_word_id >= to_word_id) THEN (from_word_id, to_word_id)
ELSE (to_word_id, from_word_id)
END
)
*
from memorization_word_translation
where from_word_id = 35 or to_word_id = 35