Additional select fields in a GROUP BY

From: Vitaly Belman <vitalib(at)012(dot)net(dot)il>
To: pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Additional select fields in a GROUP BY
Date: 2004-06-13 03:21:17
Message-ID: 2393942843.20040613062117@012.net.il
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Hello,

Consider the following query:

select t1field1, avg(t2fieild2)
from t1, t2
where t1.field1 = t2.field2
group by t1field1

That works fine. But I'd really like to see more fields of t1 in this
query, however I can't add them into the select because they're not
part of the GROUP BY, thus I have to add them to there too:

select t1field1, t1field2, t1field3, avg(t2fieild2)
from t1, t2
where t1.field1 = t2.field2
group by t1field1, t1field2, t1field3

The problem is that addind them all to GROUP BY causes a performance
loss.. The only solution I found is using a subquery like this:

select * from
t1, (select t1field1, avg(t2fieild2)
from t1, t2
where t1.field1 = t2.field2
group by t1field1) t1inner
where t1.field1 = t1inner.field1

It works just fine.. But I prefer not to use subqueries unless I am
really forced to due to the design of my application.

Another solution I considered is using aggreate function like that:

select t1field1, max(t1field2), max(t1field3), avg(t2fieild2)
from t1, t2
where t1.field1 = t2.field2
group by t1field1

Sadly, this caused the same performance... I wonder though, is it
possible to make an aggregate function like first(), last() in Oracle
(IIRC)? I believe that in such cases MySQL does first() by itself.

Other ideas are welcome too.

Regards,
Vitaly Belman

ICQ: 1912453
AIM: VitalyB1984
MSN: tmdagent(at)hotmail(dot)com
Yahoo!: VitalyBe

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