Re: looking for some suggestions

I think the most efficient way to do this is with an aggregate function.

You can define an aggregate for a varchar and text if one doesn't exist
in your database - like so

CREATE AGGREGATE sum(
BASETYPE=text,
SFUNC=textcat,
STYPE=text
);
ALTER AGGREGATE sum(text) OWNER TO postgres;

Then you can rewrite your sql statement like so

SELECT p.fname As parent, sum(c.fname || ' ') AS "Children"
FROM persons p LEFT JOIN dependents d ON p.person_id = d.parent_id LEFT
JOIN c.persons c ON d.child_id = c.person_id
GROUP BY p.fname

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-novice-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-novice-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Chansup Byun
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2006 3:22 PM
To: pgsql-novice(at)postgresql(dot)org
Cc: Chansup(dot)Byun(at)Sun(dot)COM
Subject: [NOVICE] looking for some suggestions

Hi,

I am looking for some suggestions on my test example.

I have two tables: one for persons and the other for dependents table,
which is shown below. I would like to concatenate all children of the
same parents in a single string such as:

Children
-----------------
Kidc One
Kidf Two, Kidg Two

Can anyone help me how to do that from the following tables?

I have installed PostgreSQL 8.1.3.

The tables and their records are given below.

create table persons
(
person_id serial ,
fname varchar(32) ,
CONSTRAINT person_pk PRIMARY KEY(person_id)
);

create table dependents
(
parent_id integer not null,
child_id integer not null,
CONSTRAINT dependents_pk PRIMARY KEY(parent_id, child_id)
);

insert into persons(fname) values('Dada One');
insert into persons(fname) values('Momb One');
insert into persons(fname) values('Kidc One');

insert into persons(fname) values('Dadd Two');
insert into persons(fname) values('Mome Two');
insert into persons(fname) values('Kidf Two');
insert into persons(fname) values('Kidg Two');

insert into persons(fname) values('Dadh Three');
insert into persons(fname) values('Momi Three');

insert into persons(fname) values('Dadj Four');

insert into dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('1', '3'); insert
into dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('2', '3'); insert into
dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('4', '6'); insert into
dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('5', '6'); insert into
dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('4', '7'); insert into
dependents(parent_id, child_id) values('5', '7');

The following attempt can list all the children but I'm not sure how to
group them into a single string based on their parents.

SELECT DISTINCT c.fname AS "Children"
FROM persons p, persons c, dependents d
WHERE d.parent_id = p.person_id AND
d.child_id = c.person_id
;

Children
----------
Kidc One
Kidf Two
Kidg Two

Thanks,

- Chansup

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