I have a table on pgsql with names (having more than 1 mio. rows), but I have also many duplicates. I select 3 fields: id, name, metadata.
I want to select them randomly with ORDER BY RANDOM() and LIMIT 1000, so I do this is many steps to save some memory in my PHP script.
But how can I do that so it only gives me a list having no duplicates in names.
For example [1,"Michael Fox","2003-03-03,34,M,4545"] will be returned but not [2,"Michael Fox","1989-02-23,M,5633"]. The name field is the most important and must be unique in the list everytime I do the select and it must be random.
I tried with GROUP BY name, bu then it expects me to have id and metadata in the GROUP BY as well or in a aggragate function, but I dont want to have them somehow filtered.
Anyone knows how to fetch many columns but do only a distinct on one column?
To do a distinct on only one (or n) column(s):
select distinct on (name)
name, col1, col2
from names
This will return any of the rows containing the name. If you want to control which of the rows will be returned you need to order:
select distinct on (name)
name, col1, col2
from names
order by name, col1
Will return the first row when ordered by col1.
distinct on:
SELECT DISTINCT ON ( expression [, ...] ) keeps only the first row of each set of rows where the given expressions evaluate to equal. The DISTINCT ON expressions are interpreted using the same rules as for ORDER BY (see above). Note that the “first row” of each set is unpredictable unless ORDER BY is used to ensure that the desired row appears first.
The DISTINCT ON expression(s) must match the leftmost ORDER BY expression(s). The ORDER BY clause will normally contain additional expression(s) that determine the desired precedence of rows within each DISTINCT ON group.
Anyone knows how to fetch many columns but do only a distinct on one column?
You want the DISTINCT ON clause.
You didn't provide sample data or a complete query so I don't have anything to show you. You want to write something like:
SELECT DISTINCT ON (name) fields, id, name, metadata FROM the_table;
This will return an unpredictable (but not "random") set of rows. If you want to make it predictable add an ORDER BY per Clodaldo's answer. If you want to make it truly random, you'll want to ORDER BY random().
To do a distinct on n columns:
select distinct on (col1, col2) col1, col2, col3, col4 from names
SELECT NAME,MAX(ID) as ID,MAX(METADATA) as METADATA
from SOMETABLE
GROUP BY NAME
Related
For Example:
SELECT * FROM Customers
WHERE Country IN ('Germany', 'France', 'UK')
I want to LIMIT 1 for each of the countries in my IN clause so I only see a total of 3 rows: One customer for per country (1 German, 1 France, 1 UK). Is there a simple way to do that?
Normally, a simple GROUP BY would suffice for this type of solution, however as you have specified that you want to include ALL of the columns in the result, then we can use the ROW_NUMBER() window function to provide a value to filter on.
As a general rule it is important to specify the column to sort on (ORDER BY) for all windowing or paged queries to make the result repeatable.
As no schema has been supplied, I have used Name as the field to sort on for the window, please update that (or the question) with any other field you would like, the PK is a good candidate if you have nothing else to go on.
SELECT * FROM
(
SELECT *
, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY Country ORDER BY Name) AS _rn
FROM Customers
WHERE Country IN ('Germany', 'France', 'UK')
)
WHERE _rn = 1
The PARTITION BY forces the ROW_NUMBER to be counted across all records with the same Country value, starting at 1, so in this case we only select the rows that get a row number (aliased as _rn) of 1.
The WHERE clause could have been in the outer query if you really want to, but ROW_NUMBER() can only be specified in the SELECT or ORDER BY clauses of the query, so to use it as a filter criteria we are forced to wrap the results in some way.
I need to select random values from above table where when there are multiple values (exampl:- of 3333,4444,6666) . Currently I am using below code which is biased in the final result.
insert into com_n3
select distinct number,min(district)
from com_n2
result will give more numbers with value "A" as the district. I need a unbiased random way to select from multiple entries.
you can get some random records using following query.
select number, district
from
(
select *, row_number() over (partition by number order rand()) as rank
from
temp.com_n2
) a
where a.rank=1
I'm trying to count the number of unique pool operators for every permit # in a table but am having trouble putting this value in a new column dedicated to that count.
So I have 2 tables: doh_analysis; doh_pools.
Both of these tables have a "permit" column (TEXT), but doh_analysis has about 1000 rows with duplicates in the permit column but occasional unique values in the operator column (TEXT).
I'm trying to fill a column "operator_count" in the table "doh_pools" with a count of unique values in "pooloperator" for each permit #.
So I tried the following code but am getting a syntax error at or near "(":
update doh_pools
set operator_count = select count(distinct doh_analysis.pooloperator)
from doh_analysis
where doh_analysis.permit ilike doh_pools.permit;
When I remove the "select" from before the "count" I get "SQL Error [42803]: ERROR: aggregate functions are not allowed in UPDATE".
I can successfully query a list of distinct permit-pooloperator pairs using:
select distinct permit, pooloperator
from doh_analysis;
And I can query the # of unique pooloperators per permit 1 at a time using:
select count(distinct pooloperator)
from doh_analysis
where permit ilike '52-60-03054';
But I'm struggling to insert a count of unique pairs for each permit # in the operatorcount column.
Is there a way to do this?
There is certainly a better way of doing this but I accomplished my goal by creating 2 intermediary tables and the updating the target table with values from the 2nd intermediate table like so:
select distinct permit, pooloperator
into doh_pairs
from doh_analysis;
select permit, count(distinct pooloperator)
into doh_temp
from doh_pairs
group by permit;
select count(distinct permit)
from doh_temp;
update doh_pools
set operator_count = doh_temp.count
from doh_temp
where doh_pools.permit ilike doh_temp.permit
and doh_pools.permit is not NULL
returning count;
I would like to add a column with a random number using setseed to a table.
The original table structure (test_input) col_a,col_b,col_c
Desired output (test_output) col_a, col_b, col_c, random_id
The following returns the same random_id on all rows instead of a different value in each row.
select col_a,col_b,col_c,setseed(0.5),(
select random() from generate_series(1,100) limit 1
) as random_id
from test_input
Could you help me modify the query that uses setseed and returns a different random_id in each row?
You have to use setseed differently. Also generate_series() is misued in your example. You need to use something like:
select setseed(0.5);
select col_a,col_b,col_c, random() as random_id from test_input;
If you want to get the same random number assigned to the same row, you will have to sort rows first, quoting documentation:
If the ORDER BY clause is specified, the returned rows are sorted in
the specified order. If ORDER BY is not given, the rows are returned
in whatever order the system finds fastest to produce.
You can use:
select setseed(0.5);
select *, random() as random_id from (
select col_a,col_b,col_c from test_input order by col_a, col_b, col_c) a;
Here I assume that combination of col_a, col_b, col_c is unique. If it's not the case, you will have to first add another column with unique ID to the table and sort by this column in the query above.
Is there any way to get rowid of a record in postgres??
In oracle i can use like
SELECT MAX(BILLS.ROWID) FROM BILLS
Yes, there is ctid column which is equivalent for rowid. But is useless for you. Rowid and ctid are physical row/tuple identifiers => can change after rebuild/vacuum.
See: Chapter 5. Data Definition > 5.4. System Columns
The PostgreSQL row_number() window function can be used for most purposes where you would use rowid. Whereas in Oracle the rowid is an intrinsic numbering of the result data rows, in Postgres row_number() computes a numbering within a logical ordering of the returned data. Normally if you want to number the rows, it means you expect them in a particular order, so you would specify which column(s) to order the rows when numbering them:
select client_name, row_number() over (order by date) from bills;
If you just want the rows numbered arbitrarily you can leave the over clause empty:
select client_name, row_number() over () from bills;
If you want to calculate an aggregate over the row number you'll have to use a subquery:
select max(rownum) from (
select row_number() over () as rownum from bills
) r;
If all you need is the last item from a table, and you have a column to sort sequentially, there's a simpler approach than using row_number(). Just reverse the sort order and select the first item:
select * from bills
order by date desc limit 1;
Use a Sequence. You can choose 4 or 8 byte values.
http://www.neilconway.org/docs/sequences/
Add any unique column to your table(name maybe rowid).
And prevent changing it by creating BEFORE UPDATE trigger, which will raise exception if someone will try to update.
You may populate this column with sequence as #JohnMudd mentioned.