How to convert SQL statement "delete from TABLE where someID not in (select someID from Table group by property1, property2) - ios

Question

I'm trying to convert the following SQL statement to Core Data:
delete from SomeTable
where someID not in (
select someID
from SomeTable
group by property1, property2, property3
)
Basically, I want to retrieve and delete possible duplicates in a table where a record is deemed a duplicate if property1, property2 and property3 are equal to another record.
How can I do that?
PS: As the title says, I'm trying to convert the above SQL statement into iOS Core Data methods, not trying to improve, correct or comment on the above SQL, that is beyond the point.
Thank you.

Answer 1

It sounds like you are asking for SQL to accomplish your objective. Your starting query won't do what you describe, and most databases wouldn't accept it at all on account of the aggregate subquery attempting to select a column that is not a function of the groups.
UPDATE
I had initially thought the request was to delete all members of each group containing dupes, and wrote code accordingly. Having reinterpreted the original SQL as MySQL would do, it seems the objective is to retain exactly one element for each combination of (property1, property2, property3). I guess that makes more sense anyway. Here is a standard way to do that:
delete from SomeTable st1
where someID not in (
select min(st2.someId)
from SomeTable st2
group by property1, property2, property3
)
That's distinguished from the original by use of the min() aggregate function to choose a specific one of the someId values to retain from each group. This should work, too:
delete from SomeTable st1
where someID in (
select st3.someId
from SomeTable st2
join SomeTable st3
on st2.property1 = st3.property1
and st2.property2 = st3.property2
and st2.property3 = st3.property3
where st2.someId < st3.someId
)
These two queries will retain the same rows. I like the second better, even though it's longer, because the NOT IN operator is kinda nasty for choosing a small number of elements from a large set. If you anticipate having enough rows to be concerned about scaling, though, then you should try both, and perhaps look into optimizations (for example, an index on (property1, property2, property3)) and other alternatives.
As for writing it in terms of Core Data calls, however, I don't think you exactly can. Core Data does support grouping, so you could write Core Data calls that perform the subquery in the first alternative and return you the entity objects or their IDs, grouped as described. You could then iterate over the groups, skip the first element of each, and call Core Data deletion methods for all the rest. The details are out of scope for the SO format.
I have to say, though, that doing such a job in Core Data is going to be far more costly than doing it directly in the database, both in time and in required memory. Doing it directly in the database is not friendly to an ORM framework such as Core Data, however. This sort of thing is one of the tradeoffs you've chosen by going with an ORM framework.
I'd recommend that you try to avoid the need to do this at all. Define a unique index on SomeTable(property1, property2, property3) and do whatever you need to do to avoid trying to creating duplicates or to gracefully recover from a (failed) attempt to do so.

Answer 2

DELETE SomeTable
FROM SomeTable
LEFT OUTER JOIN (
SELECT MIN(RowId) as RowId, property1, property2, property3
FROM SomeTable
GROUP BY property1, property2, property3
) as KeepRows ON
SomeTable.RowId = KeepRows.RowId
WHERE
KeepRows.RowId IS NULL

Answer 3

A few pointers for doing this in iOS: Before iOS 9 the only way to delete objects is individually, ie you will need to iterate through an array of duplicates and delete each one. (If you are targeting iOS9, there is a new NSBatchDeleteRequest which will help delete them all in one go - it does act directly on the store but also does some cleanup to eg. ensure relationships are updated where necessary).
The other problem is identifying the duplicates. You can configure a fetch to group its results (see the propertiesToGroupBy of NSFetchRequest), but you will have to specify NSDictionaryResultType (so the results are NOT the objects themselves, just the values from the relevant properties.) Furthermore, CoreData will not let you fetch properties (other than aggregates) that are not specified in the GROUP BY. So the suggestion (in the other answer) to use min(someId) will be necessary. (To fetch an expression such as this, you will need to use an NSExpression, embed it in an NSExpressionDescription and pass the latter in propertiesToFetch of the fetch request).
The end result will be an array of dictionaries, each holding the someId value of your prime records (ie the ones you don't want to delete), from which you have then got to work out the duplicates. There are various ways, but none will be very efficient.
So as the other answer says, duplicates are better avoided in the first place. On that front, note that iOS 9 allows you to specify attributes that you would like to be unique (individually or collectively).
Let me know if you would like me to elaborate on any of the above.

Answer 4

Group-wise Maximum:
select t1.someId
from SomeTable t1
left outer join SomeTable t2
on t1.property1 = t2.property1
and t1.property2 = t2.property2
and t1.property3 = t2.property3
and t1.someId < t2.someId
where t2.someId is null;
So, this could be the answer
delete SomeTable
where someId not in
(select t1.someId
from SomeTable t1
left outer join SomeTable t2
on t1.property1 = t2.property1
and t1.property2 = t2.property2
and t1.property3 = t2.property3
and t1.someId < t2.someId
where t2.someId is null);
Sqlfiddle demo

Answer 5

You can use exists function to check for each row if there is another row that exists whose id is not equal to the current row and all other properties that define the duplicate criteria of each row are equal to all the properties of the current row.
delete from something
where
id in (SELECT
sm.id
FROM
sometable sm
where
exists( select
1
from
sometable sm2
where
sm.prop1 = sm2.prop1
and sm.prop2 = sm2.prop2
and sm.prop3 = sm2.prop3
and sm.id != sm2.id)
);

Answer 6

I think you could easily handle this by creating a derived duplicate_flg column and set it to 1 when all three property values are equal. Once that is done, you could just delete those records where duplicate_flg = 1. Here is a sample query on how to do this:
--retrieve all records that has same property values (property1,property2 and property3)
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT someid
,property1
,property2
,property3
,CASE
WHEN property1 = property2
AND property1 = property3
THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS duplicate_flg
FROM SomeTable
) q1
WHERE q1.duplicate_flg = 1;
Here is a sample delete statement:
DELETE
FROM something
WHERE someid IN (
SELECT someid
FROM (
SELECT someid
,property1
,property2
,property3
,CASE
WHEN property1 = property2
AND property1 = property3
THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS duplicate_flg
FROM SomeTable
) q1
WHERE q1.duplicate_flg = 1
);

Answer 7

Simply, if you want to remove duplicate from table you can execute below Query :
delete from SomeTable
where rowid not in (
select max(rowid)
from SomeTable
group by property1, property2, property3
)

Answer 8

if you want to delete all duplicate records try the below code
WITH tblTemp as
(
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() Over(PARTITION BY Property1,Property2,Property3 ORDER BY Property1) As RowNumber,* FROM Table_1
)
DELETE FROM tblTemp where RowNumber >1
Hope it helps

Answer 9

Use the below query to delete the duplicate data from that table
delete from SomeTable where someID not in
(select Min(someID) from SomeTable
group by property1+property2+property3)