[sql] Using group by and having clause

Using the following schema:

Supplier (sid, name, status, city)
Part (pid, name, color, weight, city)
Project (jid, name, city)
Supplies (sid, pid, jid**, quantity)

1. Get supplier numbers and names for suppliers of parts supplied to at least two different projects.

2. Get supplier numbers and names for suppliers of the same part to at least two different projects.

These were my answers:

1.

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM Supplier s, Supplies su, Project pr
WHERE s.sid = su.sid AND su.jid = pr.jid
GROUP BY s.sid, s.name
HAVING COUNT (DISTINCT pr.jid) >= 2 

2.

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM Suppliers s, Supplies su, Project pr, Part p
WHERE s.sid = su.sid AND su.pid = p.pid AND su.jid = pr.jid
GROUP BY s.sid, s.name
HAVING COUNT (DISTINCT pr.jid)>=2

Can anyone confirm if I wrote this correctly? I'm a little confused as to how the Group By and Having clause works

What type of sql database are using (MSSQL, Oracle etc)? I believe what you have written is correct.

You could also write the first query like this:

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM Supplier s
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT pr.jid)
       FROM Supplies su, Projects pr
       WHERE su.sid = s.sid 
           AND pr.jid = su.jid) >= 2

It's a little more readable, and less mind-bending than trying to do it with GROUP BY. Performance may differ though.

Having: It applies filter conditions to each group of rows. Where: It applies a filter of individual rows.

The semantics of Having

To better understand having, you need to see it from a theoretical point of view.

A group by is a query that takes a table and summarizes it into another table. You summarize the original table by grouping the original table into subsets (based upon the attributes that you specify in the group by). Each of these groups will yield one tuple.

The Having is simply equivalent to a WHERE clause after the group by has executed and before the select part of the query is computed.

Lets say your query is:

select a, b, count(*) 
from Table 
where c > 100 
group by a, b 
having count(*) > 10;

The evaluation of this query can be seen as the following steps:

1. Perform the WHERE, eliminating rows that do not satisfy it.
2. Group the table into subsets based upon the values of a and b (each tuple in each subset has the same values of a and b).
3. Eliminate subsets that do not satisfy the HAVING condition
4. Process each subset outputting the values as indicated in the SELECT part of the query. This creates one output tuple per subset left after step 3.

You can extend this to any complex query there Table can be any complex query that return a table (a cross product, a join, a UNION, etc).

In fact, having is syntactic sugar and does not extend the power of SQL. Any given query:

SELECT list 
FROM table
GROUP BY attrList
HAVING condition;

can be rewritten as:

SELECT list from (
   SELECT listatt 
   FROM table 
   GROUP BY attrList) as Name
WHERE condition;

The listatt is a list that includes the GROUP BY attributes and the expressions used in list and condition. It might be necessary to name some expressions in this list (with AS). For instance, the example query above can be rewritten as:

select a, b, count 
from (select a, b, count(*) as count
      from Table 
      where c > 100
      group by a, b) as someName
where count > 10;

The solution you need

Your solution seems to be correct:

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM Supplier s, Supplies su, Project pr
WHERE s.sid = su.sid AND su.jid = pr.jid
GROUP BY s.sid, s.name
HAVING COUNT (DISTINCT pr.jid) >= 2 

You join the three tables, then using sid as a grouping attribute (sname is functionally dependent on it, so it does not have an impact on the number of groups, but you must include it, otherwise it cannot be part of the select part of the statement). Then you are removing those that do not satisfy your condition: the satisfy pr.jid is >= 2, which is that you wanted originally.

Best solution to your problem

I personally prefer a simpler cleaner solution:

1. You need to only group by Supplies (sid, pid, jid**, quantity) to find the sid of those that supply at least to two projects.
2. Then join it to the Suppliers table to get the supplier same.

 SELECT sid, sname from
    (SELECT sid from supplies 
    GROUP BY sid, pid 
    HAVING count(DISTINCT jid) >= 2
    ) AS T1
NATURAL JOIN 
Supliers;

It will also be faster to execute, because the join is only done when needed, not all the times.

--dmg

First of all, you should use the JOIN syntax rather than FROM table1, table2, and you should always limit the grouping to as little fields as you need.

Altought I haven't tested, your first query seems fine to me, but could be re-written as:

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM 
    Supplier s
    INNER JOIN (
       SELECT su.sid
       FROM Supplies su
       GROUP BY su.sid
       HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT su.jid) > 1
    ) g
        ON g.sid = s.sid

Or simplified as:

SELECT sid, name
FROM Supplier s
WHERE (
    SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT su.jid)
    FROM Supplies su
    WHERE su.sid = s.sid
) > 1

However, your second query seems wrong to me, because you should also GROUP BY pid.

 SELECT s.sid, s.name
    FROM 
        Supplier s
        INNER JOIN (
            SELECT su.sid
            FROM Supplies su
            GROUP BY su.sid, su.pid
            HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT su.jid) > 1
        ) g
            ON g.sid = s.sid

As you may have noticed in the query above, I used the INNER JOIN syntax to perform the filtering, however it can be also written as:

SELECT s.sid, s.name
FROM Supplier s
WHERE (
     SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT su.jid)
     FROM Supplies su
     WHERE su.sid = s.sid
     GROUP BY su.sid, su.pid
) > 1

1.Get supplier numbers and names for suppliers of parts supplied to at least two different projects.

 SELECT S.SID, S.NAME
 FROM SUPPLIES SP
 JOIN SUPPLIER S
 ON SP.SID = S.SID
 WHERE PID IN
 (SELECT PID FROM SUPPPLIES GROUP BY PID, JID HAVING COUNT(*) >= 2)

I am not slear about your second question

Because we can not use Where clause with aggregate functions like count(),min(), sum() etc. so having clause came into existence to overcome this problem in sql. see example for having clause go through this link

http://www.sqlfundamental.com/having-clause.php