SQLite: Leave only n rows for each field

greatest-n-per-groupsqlite

I have a table

+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+
|         Painter             | Painting      | Rate      |
+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Window        | 5         |
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Florence      | 1         |
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Nude          | 8         |
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Bath          | 4         |
|  Thomas And William Daniell | Turbine Makers| 2         |
|  Thomas And William Daniell | George Iain   | 7         |
|  Thomas And William Daniell | Flax Pullers  | 3         |
|  Robert Motherwell          | Galleons      | 1         |
|  Robert Motherwell          | Ulysses       | 2         |
+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+

I need to get 2 paintings for each painter with the highest rate.

+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+
|         Painter             | Painting      | Rate      |
+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Nude          | 8         |
|  Zinaida Serebriakova       | Window        | 5         |
|  Thomas And William Daniell | George Iain   | 7         |
|  Thomas And William Daniell | Flax Pullers  | 3         |
|  Robert Motherwell          | Ulysses       | 2         |
|  Robert Motherwell          | Galleons      | 1         |
+-----------------------------+---------------+-----------+

And delete everything else!

Best Answer

WITH 
cte AS ( SELECT author, 
                name, 
                rating, 
                ROW_NUMBER() OVER ( PARTITION BY author 
                                    ORDER BY rating DESC ) rn
         FROM ratings )
DELETE
FROM ratings
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT 1
               FROM cte
               WHERE ratings.author = cte.author
                 AND ratings.name = cte.name
                 AND cte.rn > 2 );

fiddle

Related Solutions

SQLite writing a query where you select only rows nearest to the hour

Assuming that you want a SQL-only solution and your table is defined as:

CREATE TABLE measurements (
  pk INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
  timestamp INTEGER NOT NULL,
  value TEXT NOT NULL,
  sensor_id INTEGER);

then create the following views:

CREATE VIEW vw_measurements AS
SELECT pk, timestamp, value, sensor_id,
       3600*ROUND((timestamp+1800)/3600) AS hour,
       ABS(timestamp - 3600*ROUND((timestamp+1800)/3600)) AS distance
FROM measurements;
CREATE VIEW min_distances AS
SELECT hour, MIN(distance) AS min_distance
FROM vw_measurements
GROUP BY hour;

Then you can get the records closest to every hour as:

SELECT m.hour, GROUP_CONCAT(m.timestamp), GROUP_CONCAT(m.value)
FROM vw_measurements m, min_distances d
WHERE m.hour = d.hour AND m.distance = d.min_distance
GROUP BY m.hour;

WARNING: SQLite SQL lacks many useful constructs that other SQL variants have, so the solution above can't discriminate between records with timestamps equidistant to their closest hour (either same timestamps or hour±samedelta); ergo the GROUP_CONCAT aggregate. Typically each row will have a single timestamp and value.

Note that if you have many thousands of records, the performance can be abysmal (tested on SQLite 3.7.9), and it might be better if min_distances becomes a temporary table.

Also: this solution does not fetch NULL values for hours without any related records (plus/minus 30 minutes).

Postgresql – Consolidating large table

I want to group records that have the same combination of class, ip_address, and hostname, and keep the highest timestamp for each day from each group.

Not using the column name timestamp (like you shouldn't either). It's a reserved word in SQL and a basic type name in Postgres. Using ts instead.

The query is surprisingly simple with DISTINCT ON:

SELECT DISTINCT ON (class, ip_address, hostname, ts::date) *
FROM   agent_log
WHERE  ts < now() - interval '7 days'
ORDER  BY class, ip_address, hostname, ts::date, ts DESC;

Detailed explanation:
Select first row in each GROUP BY group?

Best Answer

Related Solutions

SQLite writing a query where you select only rows nearest to the hour

Postgresql – Consolidating large table

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