Re: design of tables for sparse data

On Nov 12, 2007, at 8:10 PM, Andreas wrote:

> Fernando Hevia schrieb:
>>> --- Andreas Wrote: ---
>>> ...
>>>
>>> MY QUESTIONS:
>>>
>>
>> Your questions have a strong "home-work" look.
>
> Yes but I didn't want to bother everyone with my project's details.
> It's more like a CRM.
> Up until now I just tried to manage somehow with the sql basics and
> now I like to get better.
> One interesting thing are crosstabs because I could use them in the
> reporting module.
>
> I used this schoolbook scenario because it's such an easy
> example. ;)
>
>
>>> 1) How would I SELECT a report that looks like the first
>>> version of
>>> the pupil table out of the 3 table design?
>>> There must be a nontrivial SELECT statement that combines all 3
>>> tables.
>>>
>>
>> You should check out the JOIN clause in select statements. Simple
>> example:
>>
>> Select t1.col1, t2.col1, t2.col2
>> >from t1 inner join t2 b on (t1.col1 = t2.col1)
>>
>
> A simple JOIN won't do the trick.
> That would give me something like:
> (42, Frank Miller, Maths)
> (42, Frank Miller, English)
> (42, Frank Miller, Sports)
> (43, Suzy Smith, Maths)
> (43, Suzy Smith, History)
>
> But I want it turned around and a bit interpreted like:
>
> Column heads = (ID, Name, Maths, English, Sports, History)
> (42, Frank Miller, yes, yes, yes, no )
> (43, Suzy Smith, yes, no, no, yes)

You should look into the crosstab contrib package.

Erik Jones

Software Developer | Emma®
erik(at)myemma(dot)com
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