Re: SQL for Deleting all duplicate entries - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Scott Marlowe
Subject Re: SQL for Deleting all duplicate entries
Date
Msg-id dcc563d10709050755v7ff08941n49d4ed73ae1ac312@mail.gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to SQL for Deleting all duplicate entries  (Håkan Jacobsson <hakan.jacobsson99@bredband.net>)
Responses Re: SQL for Deleting all duplicate entries  ("Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
On 9/5/07, Håkan Jacobsson <hakan.jacobsson99@bredband.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I want to create a DELETE statement which deletes duplicates
> in a table.
>
> That is, I want to remove all rows - but one - having three
> columns with the same data (more columns exist and there the
> data varies).

Assuming you've got a KNOWN unique id field (adding one if you don't)
you can do something like:

select * from table t1 join table t2 on (t1.field1=t2.field1 AND
t1.field2=t2.field2 AND t1.field3=t2.field3 AND t1.uid>t2.uid)

That should get the ids of all but one of the matching rows.  then
just use that in a subselect:

begin;
delete from table where uid in (select * from table t1 join table t2
on (t1.field1=t2.field1 AND t1.field2=t2.field2 AND
t1.field3=t2.field3 AND t1.uid>t2.uid) );
(check for dups / lost data)
commit;
or something like that.

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