Thread: Wishlist: subqueries that return multiple columns

I've several times wanted a way to add multiple select output columns using a
single expression. A typical scenario would be if the columns come from a
subselect from another table where repeating the subselect means slow
performance as well as awkward and repetitive code.

Sometimes the subselect can be rewritten as a join, but that is not always the
case. Consider something like:

select customer.*,      (select avg(amount),sum(amount) from purchases         where purchases.customer_id =
customer.customer_id     ) as (avg_purchase, total_purchase),      (select avg(amount),sum(amount) from quotes
wherequotes.customer_id = customer.customer_id      ) as (avg_quote, total_quote) from customer
 

(Ok, actually that could be done as a join using some trickery with GROUP BY,
but I have other scenarios where it can't because the subselects overlap.)

With the new support for complex data types like arrays and structures perhaps
I could do this by constructing a RECORD in each subselect and then wrapping
another layer around the query where I explicitly list each element of the
RECORD that I want to include in the result set.

But it would be nice to have some more convenient mechanisms for handling this
case.

-- 
greg

> I've several times wanted a way to add multiple select output columns 
> using a
> single expression. A typical scenario would be if the columns come 
> from a
> subselect from another table where repeating the subselect means slow
> performance as well as awkward and repetitive code.
>
> Sometimes the subselect can be rewritten as a join, but that is not 
> always the
> case. Consider something like:
>
> select customer.*,
>        (select avg(amount),sum(amount) from purchases
>          where purchases.customer_id = customer.customer_id
>        ) as (avg_purchase, total_purchase),
>        (select avg(amount),sum(amount) from quotes
>          where quotes.customer_id = customer.customer_id
>        ) as (avg_quote, total_quote)
>   from customer
>
> (Ok, actually that could be done as a join using some trickery with 
> GROUP BY,
> but I have other scenarios where it can't because the subselects 
> overlap.)

Yes !! this would be very useful.
I am using such constructs a lot for crosstabs with different time 
periods for ex. (lots of subselects) and then doing some simple math 
with the resulting columns, ratios for ex.

> With the new support for complex data types like arrays and structures 
> perhaps
> I could do this by constructing a RECORD in each subselect and then 
> wrapping
> another layer around the query where I explicitly list each element of 
> the
> RECORD that I want to include in the result set.
>
> But it would be nice to have some more convenient mechanisms for 
> handling this
> case.
>
> -- 
> greg

Philippe Schmid