Re: Iterate and write a previous row to a temp table?

Bob Singleton wrote:
> Revisiting a Time In Status query I received help on - I'm trying to
> narrow down a subset of data I return for analysis.
>
> Given a statusLog as entityId, statusId, timestamp that might look
> something like
>
> entityId | statusId | timestamp
> --------------------------------------------
> 001 | HLD | 2007-06-14 11:07:35.93
> 001 | RDY | 2007-06-15 11:07:35.93
> 001 | USE | 2007-06-16 11:07:35.93
> 001 | RDY | 2007-06-17 11:07:35.93
> 001 | MNT | 2007-06-18 11:07:35.93
>
> I need to pull for a given span of time - say 2007-06-16 00:00:00.01
> (let me call it startTime) to 2007-06-17 23:59:59.99 (call it endTime)
> in such a way that rows with a timestamp between startTime and endTime
> AND the latest record prior to or equal to startTime are returned. In
> the above simplified example, only the second and third rows would be
> returned.

Can't be done, because you don't have a primary key, so no way to
distinguish between duplicate rows. However, if you just eliminate
duplicates you could just use a function like (not tested):

CREATE FUNCTION ranged(
startTime timestamp with time zone,
endTime timestamp with time zone,
) RETURNS SETOF statusLog
AS $$
SELECT entityid,statusid,timestamp
FROM statusLog
WHERE timestamp BETWEEN startTime AND endTime

UNION

SELECT entityid,statusid,timestamp
FROM statusLog
WHERE timestamp <= startTime ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 1

ORDER BY <final result ordering>
$$ LANGUAGE SQL;

Note that UNION eliminates duplicates, if you want to keep them use
"UNION ALL"

HTH

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd