Unusual Joins SQL - join

I am having to convert code written by a former employee to work in a new database. In doing so I came across some joins I have never seen and do not fully understand how they work or if there is a need for them to be done in this fashion.
The joins look like this:
From Table A
Join(Table B
Join Table C
on B.Field1 = C.Field1)
On A.Field1 = B.Field1
Does this code function differently from something like this:
From Table A
Join Table B
On A.Field1 = B.Field1
Join Table C
On B.Field1 = C.Field1
If there is a difference please explain the purpose of the first set of code.
All of this is done in SQL Server 2012. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

I could create a temp table and then join that. But why use up the cycles\RAM on additional storage and indexes if I can just do it on the fly?
I ran across this scenario today in SSRS - a user wanted to see all the Individuals granted access through an AD group. The user was using a cursor and some temp tables to get the users out of AD and then joining the user to each SSRS object (Folders, reports, linked reports) associated with the AD group. I simplified the whole thing with Cross Apply and a sub query.
GroupMembers table
GroupName
UserID
UserName
AccountType
AccountTypeDesc
SSRSOjbects_Permissions table
Path
PathType
RoleName
RoleDesc
Name (AD group name)
The query needs to return each individual in an AD group associated with each report. Basically a Cartesian product of users to reports within a subset of data. The easiest way to do this looks like this:
select
G.GroupName, G.UserID, G.Name, G.AccountType, G.AccountTypeDesc,
[Path], PathType, RoleName, RoleDesc
from
GroupMembers G
cross apply
(select
[Path], PathType, RoleName, RoleDesc
from
SSRSOjbects_Permissions
where
Name = G.GroupName) S;
You could achieve this with a temp table and some outer joins, but why waste system resources?

I saw this kind of joins - it's MS Access style for handling multi-table joins. In MS Access you need to nest each subsequent join statement into its level brackets. So, for example this T-SQL join:
SELECT a.columna, b.columnb, c.columnc
FROM tablea AS a
LEFT JOIN tableb AS b ON a.id = b.id
LEFT JOIN tablec AS c ON a.id = c.id
you should convert to this:
SELECT a.columna, b.columnb, c.columnc
FROM ((tablea AS a) LEFT JOIN tableb AS b ON a.id = b.id) LEFT JOIN tablec AS c ON a.id = c.id
So, yes, I believe you are right in your assumption

Related

How can I join 2 tables?

I would like to join tables . Could you please help?
Select Number, OwnerId from DNIS.numbers
select ID,Name from DNIS.owners
Thank you.
Normally, SQL servers allow you to join tables from different databases as long as the former all belong to them. Here is an example showing you how to do this (all you have to do is to explicitly write the database names associated to each table in the query):
SELECT N.Number, N.OwnerId, O.ID, O.Name
FROM DB1.[dbo].DNIS numbers N
JOIN DB2.[dbo].DNIS owners O ON O.ID = N.OwnerId
You can also use the following syntax:
SELECT N.Number, N.OwnerId, O.ID, O.Name
FROM DB1..DNIS numbers N
JOIN DB2..DNIS owners O ON O.ID = N.OwnerId
In order to accomplish that you will have to specify the table and column names in your join statement, like so:
SELECT db1.tablename.column, db2.tablename.column
FROM db1.tablename INNER JOIN db2.tablename
ON db1.tablename.id = db2.tablename.id;

Optimizing SQL query using JOIN instead of NOT IN

I have a sql query that I'd like to optimize. I'm not the designer of the database, so I have no way of altering structure, indexes or stored procedures.
I have a table that consists of invoices (called faktura) and each invoice has a unique invoice id. If we have to cancel the invoice a secondary invoice is created in the same table but with a field ("modpartfakturaid") referring to the original invoice id.
Example of faktura table:
invoice 1: Id=152549, modpartfakturaid=null
invoice 2: Id=152592, modpartfakturaid=152549
We also have a table called "BHLFORLINIE" which consists of services rendered to the customer. Some of the services have already been invoiced and match a record in the invoice (FAKTURA) table.
What I'd like to do is get a list of all services that either does not have an invoice yet or does not have an invoice that's been cancelled.
What I'm doing now is this:
`SELECT
dbo.BHLFORLINIE.LeveringsDato AS treatmentDate,
dbo.PatientView.Navn AS patientName,
dbo.PatientView.CPRNR AS patientCPR
FROM
dbo.BHLFORLINIE
INNER JOIN dbo.BHLFORLOEB
ON dbo.BHLFORLOEB.BhlForloebID = dbo.BHLFORLINIE.BhlForloebID
INNER JOIN dbo.PatientView
ON dbo.PatientView.PersonID = dbo.BHLFORLOEB.PersonID
INNER JOIN dbo.HENVISNING
ON dbo.HENVISNING.BhlForloebID = dbo.BHLFORLOEB.BhlForloebID
LEFT JOIN dbo.FAKTURA
ON dbo.BHLFORLINIE.FakturaId = FAKTURA.FakturaId
WHERE
(dbo.BHLFORLINIE.LeveringsDato >= '2017-01-01' OR dbo.BHLFORLINIE.FakturaId IS NULL) AND
dbo.BHLFORLINIE.ProduktNr IN (110,111,112,113,8050,4001,4002,4003,4004,4005,4006,4007,4008,4009,6001,6002,6003,6004,6005,6006,6007,6008,7001,7002,7003,7004,7005,7006,7007,7008) AND
((dbo.FAKTURA.FakturaType = 0 AND
dbo.FAKTURA.FakturaID NOT IN (
SELECT FAKTURA.ModpartFakturaID FROM FAKTURA WHERE FAKTURA.ModpartFakturaID IS NOT NULL
)) OR
dbo.FAKTURA.FakturaType IS NULL)
GROUP BY
dbo.PatientView.CPRNR,
dbo.PatientView.Navn,
dbo.BHLFORLINIE.LeveringsDato`
Is there a smarter way of doing this? Right now the added the query performs three times slower because of the "not in" subquery.
Any help is much appreciated!
Peter
You can use an outer join and check for null values to find non matches
SELECT customer.name, invoice.id
FROM invoices i
INNER JOIN customer ON i.customerId = customer.customerId
LEFT OUTER JOIN invoices i2 ON i.invoiceId = i2.cancelInvoiceId
WHERE i2.invoiceId IS NULL

Issues with joining multiple tables

I'm really struggling at the moment trying to work out how to join multiple tables without duplicating data.
At the moment I have 8 tables that I was wanted to get various information from per member of staff like the below:
SDQ score, Goal scores, CHI score, number of appointments, number of dna appointments
The tables and field I can see to join are as follows
tblSDQ - Assessed_By_Staff_ID
tblGoals - Recorded_By_Staff_ID
tblCHI - Recorded_By_Staff_ID
tblReferral - Staff_ID
tblStaff - Staff_ID
tblDiaryAppointment - needs to connect to tblDiaryAppointmentClinician using Clinician_Invitee_Staff_ID
I hope someone can help or advice. I just don't know if it's even possible to join all these tables using the same field, or if its possible to join them but then return a number of entries but then just count others?
Syntax depends on a rdbms you are using.
You could use join with specified join fields from both tables:
select bla-bla
from table1
join table2 on ( table1.fileld_name1 = table2.fileld_name2 )
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/join.html
if you need outer join (to show nulls for optional tables data) you could use this:
join table2 on ( table1.fileld_name1 = table2.fileld_name2 or table2.field_name2 is null )
to join with couns you could use subqueries like this
join ( select field_name3, coint(*) as cnt from table3 goup by field_name3 ) AS table3_counts
...
where ( table3_counts.field_name3 = ... or table3_counts.field_name3 is null )
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/from-clause-subqueries.html
PS: Joins are often slow. It's better to denormalize tables to eliminate joins and gain performance. Or do simple selects and join in backend code.

ASP.NET MVC & EF4 Entity Framework - Are there any performance concerns in using the entities vs retrieving only the fields i need?

Lets say we have 3 tables, Users, Products, Purchases.
There is a view that needs to display the purchases made by a user.
I could lookup the data required by doing:
from p in DBSet<Purchases>.Include("User").Include("Product") select p;
However, I am concern that this may have a performance impact because it will retrieve the full objects.
Alternatively, I could select only the fields i need:
from p in DBSet<Purchases>.Include("User").Include("Product") select new SimplePurchaseInfo() { UserName = p.User.name, Userid = p.User.Id, ProductName = p.Product.Name ... etc };
So my question is:
Whats the best practice in doing this?
== EDIT
Thanks for all the replies.
[QUESTION 1]: I want to know whether all views should work with flat ViewModels with very specific data for that view, or should the ViewModels contain the entity objects.
Real example: User reviews Products
var query = from dr in productRepository.FindAllReviews()
where dr.User.UserId = 'userid'
select dr;
string sql = ((ObjectQuery)query).ToTraceString();
SELECT [Extent1].[ProductId] AS [ProductId],
[Extent1].[Comment] AS [Comment],
[Extent1].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime],
[Extent1].[Id] AS [Id],
[Extent1].[Rating] AS [Rating],
[Extent1].[UserId] AS [UserId],
[Extent3].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime1],
[Extent3].[CreatorId] AS [CreatorId],
[Extent3].[Description] AS [Description],
[Extent3].[Id] AS [Id1],
[Extent3].[Name] AS [Name],
[Extent3].[Price] AS [Price],
[Extent3].[Rating] AS [Rating1],
[Extent3].[ShopId] AS [ShopId],
[Extent3].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail],
[Extent3].[Creator_UserId] AS [Creator_UserId],
[Extent4].[Comment] AS [Comment1],
[Extent4].[DateCreated] AS [DateCreated],
[Extent4].[DateLastActivity] AS [DateLastActivity],
[Extent4].[DateLastLogin] AS [DateLastLogin],
[Extent4].[DateLastPasswordChange] AS [DateLastPasswordChange],
[Extent4].[Email] AS [Email],
[Extent4].[Enabled] AS [Enabled],
[Extent4].[PasswordHash] AS [PasswordHash],
[Extent4].[PasswordSalt] AS [PasswordSalt],
[Extent4].[ScreenName] AS [ScreenName],
[Extent4].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail1],
[Extent4].[UserId] AS [UserId1],
[Extent4].[UserName] AS [UserName]
FROM [ProductReviews] AS [Extent1]
INNER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[UserId] = [Extent2].[UserId]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Products] AS [Extent3] ON [Extent1].[ProductId] = [Extent3].[Id]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent4] ON [Extent1].[UserId] = [Extent4].[UserId]
WHERE N'615005822' = [Extent2].[UserId]
or
from d in productRepository.FindAllProducts()
from dr in d.ProductReviews
where dr.User.UserId == 'userid'
orderby dr.CreatedTime
select new ProductReviewInfo()
{
product = new SimpleProductInfo() { Id = d.Id, Name = d.Name, Thumbnail = d.Thumbnail, Rating = d.Rating },
Rating = dr.Rating,
Comment = dr.Comment,
UserId = dr.UserId,
UserScreenName = dr.User.ScreenName,
UserThumbnail = dr.User.Thumbnail,
CreateTime = dr.CreatedTime
};
SELECT
[Extent1].[Id] AS [Id],
[Extent1].[Name] AS [Name],
[Extent1].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail],
[Extent1].[Rating] AS [Rating],
[Extent2].[Rating] AS [Rating1],
[Extent2].[Comment] AS [Comment],
[Extent2].[UserId] AS [UserId],
[Extent4].[ScreenName] AS [ScreenName],
[Extent4].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail1],
[Extent2].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime]
FROM [Products] AS [Extent1]
INNER JOIN [ProductReviews] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[Id] = [Extent2].[ProductId]
INNER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent3] ON [Extent2].[UserId] = [Extent3].[UserId]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent4] ON [Extent2].[UserId] = [Extent4].[UserId]
WHERE N'userid' = [Extent3].[UserId]
ORDER BY [Extent2].[CreatedTime] ASC
[QUESTION 2]: Whats with the ugly outer joins?
In general, only retrieve what you need, but keep in mind to retrieve enough information so your application is not too chatty, so if you can batch a bunch of things together, do so, otherwise you'll pay network traffic cost everytime you need to go back to the database and retrieve some more stuffs.
In this case, assuming you will only need those info, I would go with the second approach (if that's what you really need).
Eager loading with .Include doesn't really play nice when you want filtering (or ordering for that matter).
That first query is basically this:
select p.*, u.*, p2.*
from products p
left outer join users u on p.userid = u.userid
left outer join purchases p2 on p.productid = p2.productid
where u.userid == #p1
Is that really what you want?
There is a view that needs to display the purchases made by a user.
Well then why are you including "Product"?
Shouldn't it just be:
from p in DBSet<Purchases>.Include("User") select p;
Your second query will error. You must project to an entity on the model, or an anonymous type - not a random class/DTO.
To be honest, the easiest and most well performing option in your current scenario is to query on the FK itself:
var purchasesForUser = DBSet<Purchases>.Where(x => x.UserId == userId);
That should produce:
select p.*
from products p
where p.UserId == #p1
The above query of course requires you to include the foreign keys in the model.
If you don't have the FK's in your model, then you'll need more LINQ-Entities trickery in the form of anonymous type projection.
Overall, don't go out looking to optimize. Create queries which align with the scenario/business requirement, then optimize if necessary - or look for alternatives to LINQ-Entities, such as stored procedures, views or compiled queries.
Remember: premature optimization is the root of all evil.
*EDIT - In response to Question Update *
[QUESTION 1]: I want to know whether all views should work with flat ViewModels with very specific data for that view, or should the ViewModels contain the entity objects.
Yes - ViewModel's should only contain what is required for that View. Otherwise why have the ViewModel? You may as well bind straight to the EF model. So, setup the ViewModel which only the fields it needs for the view.
[QUESTION 2]: What's with the ugly outer joins?
That is default behaviour for .Include. .Include always produces a left outer join.
I think the second query will throw exception because you can't map result to unmapped .NET type in Linq-to-entities. You have to return annonymous type and map it to your object in Linq-to-objects or you have to use some advanced concepts for projections - QueryView (projections in ESQL) or DefiningQuery (custom SQL query mapped to new readonly entity).
Generally it is more about design of your entities. If you select single small entity it is not a big difference to load it all instead of projection. If you are selecting list of entities you should consider projections - expecially if tables contains columns like nvarchar(max) or varbinar(max) which are not needed in your result!
Both create almost the same query: select from one table, with two inner joins. The only thing that changes from a database perspective is the amount of fields returned, but that shouldn't really matter that much.
I think here DRY wins from a performance hit (if it even exists): so my call is go for the first option.

Using RoR with a legacy table that uses E-A-V

I'm needing to connect to a legacy database and pull a subset of data from a table that uses the entity-attribute-value model to store a contact's information. The table looks like the following:
subscriberid fieldid data
1 2 Jack
1 3 Sparrow
2 2 Dan
2 3 Smith
where fieldid is a foreign key to a fields table that lists custom fields a given customer can have (e.g. first name, last name, phone). The SQL involved is rather hairy as I have to join the table to itself for every field I want back (currently I need 6 fields) as well as joining to a master contact list that's based on the current user.
The SQL is something like this:
select t0.data as FirstName, t1.data as LastName, t2.data as SmsOnly
from subscribers_data t0 inner join subscribers_data t1
on t0.subscriberid = t1.subscriberid
inner join subscribers_data t2
on t2.subscriberid = t1.subscriberid
inner join list_subscribers ls
on (t0.subscriberid = ls.subscriberid and t1.subscriberid = ls.subscriberid)
inner join lists l
on ls.listid = l.listid
where l.name = 'My Contacts'
and t0.fieldid = 2
and t1.fieldid = 3;
How should I go about handling this with my RoR application? I would like to abstracat this away and still be able to use the normal "dot notation" for pulling the attributes out. Luckily the data is read-only for the foreseeable future.
This is exactly what #find_by_sql was designed for. I would reimplement #find to do what you need to do, something like this:
class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
set_table_table "subscribers_data"
def self.find(options={})
find_by_sql <<EOS
select t0.data as FirstName, t1.data as LastName, t2.data as SmsOnly
from subscribers_data t0 inner join subscribers_data t1
on t0.subscriberid = t1.subscriberid
inner join subscribers_data t2
on t2.subscriberid = t1.subscriberid
inner join list_subscribers ls
on (t0.subscriberid = ls.subscriberid and t1.subscriberid = ls.subscriberid)
inner join lists l
on ls.listid = l.listid
where l.name = 'My Contacts'
and t0.fieldid = 2
and t1.fieldid = 3;
EOS
end
end
The Contact instances will have #FirstName and #LastName as attributes. You could rename them as AR expects too, such that #first_name and #last_name would work. Simply change the AS clauses of your SELECT.
I am not sure it is totally germane to your question, but you might want to take a look at MagicModel. It can generate models for you based on a legacy database. Might lower the amount of work you need to do.

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