What’s Faster? COUNT(*) or COUNT(1)?

One of the biggest and undead myths in SQL is that COUNT(*) is faster than COUNT(1). Or was it that COUNT(1) is faster than COUNT(*)? Impossible to remember, because there's really no reason at all why one should be faster than the other. But is the myth justified? Let's measure! How does COUNT(...) work? But … Continue reading What’s Faster? COUNT(*) or COUNT(1)?

Writing Custom Aggregate Functions in SQL Just Like a Java 8 Stream Collector

All SQL databases support the standard aggregate functions COUNT(), SUM(), AVG(), MIN(), MAX(). Some databases support other aggregate functions, like: EVERY() STDDEV_POP() STDDEV_SAMP() VAR_POP() VAR_SAMP() ARRAY_AGG() STRING_AGG() But what if you want to roll your own? Java 8 Stream Collector When using Java 8 streams, we can easily roll our own aggregate function (i.e. a … Continue reading Writing Custom Aggregate Functions in SQL Just Like a Java 8 Stream Collector

How to Write a Multiplication Aggregate Function in SQL

Everyone knows the SQL SUM() aggregate function (and many people also know its window function variant). When querying the Sakila database, we can get the daily revenue (using PostgreSQL syntax): WITH p AS ( SELECT CAST (payment_date AS DATE) AS date, amount FROM payment ) SELECT date, SUM (amount) AS daily_revenue, SUM (SUM (amount)) OVER … Continue reading How to Write a Multiplication Aggregate Function in SQL

How to Calculate Multiple Aggregate Functions in a Single Query

At a customer site, I've recently encountered a report where a programmer needed to count quite a bit of stuff from a single table. The counts all differed in the way they used specific predicates. The report looked roughly like this (as always, I'm using the Sakila database for illustration): -- Total number of films … Continue reading How to Calculate Multiple Aggregate Functions in a Single Query

A True SQL Gem You Didn’t Know Yet: The EVERY() Aggregate Function

We've just added support for the EVERY() aggregate function (#1391) to jOOQ, and would like to take the opportunity of letting you know of this true SQL gem that can come in handy EVERY(now and then) (pun intended). Let's assume we have four books in our table: INSERT INTO book VALUES (1, 1, '1984'); INSERT … Continue reading A True SQL Gem You Didn’t Know Yet: The EVERY() Aggregate Function