RE: SQL question

What about:

select count(count(*))
from emp
group by ename, job

Have fun :)

Waleed

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 1:55 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Jared

Jared Still wrote:
> Though not a dramatic difference, the CONCAT was faster
> and less resource intensive than the inline view with GROUP BY.
>
> :)

Ok, let it be like that, but your test does not check some other things, like common sense, logic, and session memory. Performance can vary as I mentioned sometimes can be neglected, however let's consider the tricks you made before your test:

1. create index emp_idx on emp(ename, job, mydate); -- what for do you need it? It was not in the original problem definition. It's not used, however you created it, what's that for?
2. Both queries give different results, that's what I mentioned -- you just proved my words :) One must be very careful with that. Even DISTINCT can lose sometimes like in your example, but it does not mean that the logic of the application works correctly in case of || = CONCAT is used. Think also about an artificial limit your create -- each and every varchar has to be padded to it's maximum length (become CHAR) -- that optional and case dependent, however; all date and numeric columns have to be formatted otherwise you can face the same case like your your example.

SQL> SELECT COUNT(*) FROM emp;

    COUNT(*)

       64000

SQL> select count(distinct(ename||job||mydate)) FROM emp;

COUNT(DISTINCT(ENAME||JOB||MYDATE))

                                 2000

SQL> SELECT COUNT(*)
    2 FROM (
    3 SELECT DISTINCT
    4 ename, job, mydate
    5 FROM emp
    6 );

    COUNT(*)

        7000

-- 
Vladimir Begun
The statements and opinions expressed here are my own and
do not necessarily represent those of Oracle Corporation.

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