How would you create a group identifier based on one column, but sorted by another? - tsql

Question

I am attempting to create column Group via T-SQL.
If a cluster of accounts are in a row, consider that as one group. if the account is seen again lower in the list (cluster or not), then consider it a new group. This seems straight forward, but I cannot seem to see the solution... Below there are three clusters of account 3456, each having a different group number (Group 1,4, and 6)
+-------+---------+------+
| Group | Account | Sort |
+-------+---------+------+
| 1 | 3456 | 1 |
| 1 | 3456 | 2 |
| 2 | 9878 | 3 |
| 3 | 5679 | 4 |
| 4 | 3456 | 5 |
| 4 | 3456 | 6 |
| 4 | 3456 | 7 |
| 5 | 1295 | 8 |
| 6 | 3456 | 9 |
+-------+---------+------+
UPDATE: I left this out of the original requirements, but a cluster of accounts could have more than two accounts. I updated the example data to include this scenario.

Answer 1

Here's how I'd do it:
--Sample Data
DECLARE #table TABLE (Account INT, Sort INT);
INSERT #table
VALUES (3456,1),(3456,2),(9878,3),(5679,4),(3456,5),(3456,6),(1295,7),(3456,8);
--Solution
SELECT [Group] = DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY grouper.groupID), grouper.Account, grouper.Sort
FROM
(
SELECT t.*, groupID = ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY t.sort) +
CASE t.Account WHEN LEAD(t.Account,1) OVER (ORDER BY t.sort) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END
FROM #table AS t
) AS grouper;
Results:
Group Account Sort
------- ----------- -----------
1 3456 1
1 3456 2
2 9878 3
3 5679 4
4 3456 5
4 3456 6
5 1295 7
6 3456 8
Update based on OPs comment below (20190508)
I spent a couple days banging my head on how to handle groups of three or more; it was surprisingly difficult but what I came up with handles bigger clusters and is way better than my first answer. I updated the sample data to include bigger clusters.
Note that I include a UNIQUE constraint for the sort column - this creates a unique index. You don't need the constraint for this solution to work but, having an index on that column (clustered, nonclustered unique or just nonclustered) will improve the performance dramatically.
--Sample Data
DECLARE #table TABLE (Account INT, Sort INT UNIQUE);
INSERT #table
VALUES (3456,1),(3456,2),(9878,3),(5679,4),(3456,5),(3456,6),(1295,7),(1295,8),(1295,9),(1295,10),(3456,11);
-- Better solution
WITH Groups AS
(
SELECT t.*, Grouper =
CASE t.Account WHEN LAG(t.Account,1,t.Account) OVER (ORDER BY t.Sort) THEN 0 ELSE 1 END
FROM #table AS t
)
SELECT [Group] = SUM(sg.Grouper) OVER (ORDER BY sg.Sort)+1, sg.Account, sg.Sort
FROM Groups AS sg;
Results:
Group Account Sort
----------- ----------- -----------
1 3456 1
1 3456 2
2 9878 3
3 5679 4
4 3456 5
4 3456 6
5 1295 7
5 1295 8
5 1295 9
5 1295 10
6 3456 11