Custom Window Functions – Java, SQL and jOOQ.

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 Collector). Let’s assume we want to find the second highest value in a stream. The highest value can be obtained like this:


System.out.println(
    Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4)
          .collect(Collectors.maxBy(Integer::compareTo))
) ;

Yielding:

Optional[4]

Now, what about the second highest value? We can write the following collector:


System.out.println(
    Stream.of(1, 6, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5).parallel()
          .collect(Collector.of(
              () -> new int[] { 
                  Integer.MIN_VALUE, 
                  Integer.MIN_VALUE 
              },
              (a, i) -> {
                  if (a[0] < i) {
                      a[1] = a[0];
                      a[0] = i;
                  }
                  else if (a[1] < i)
                      a[1] = i;
              },
              (a1, a2) -> {
                  if (a2[0] > a1[0]) {
                      a1[1] = a1[0];
                      a1[0] = a2[0];

                      if (a2[1] > a1[1])
                          a1[1] = a2[1];
                  }
                  else if (a2[0] > a1[1])
                      a1[1] = a2[0];

                  return a1;
              },
              a -> a[1]
          ))
) ;

It doesn’t do anything fancy. It has these 4 functions:

Supplier<int[]>: A supplier that provides an intermediary int[] of length 2, initialised with Integer.MIN_VALUE, each. This array will remember the MAX() value in the stream at position 0 and the SECOND_MAX() value in the stream at position 1
BiConsumer<int[], Integer>: A accumulator that accumulates new values from the stream into our intermediary data structure.
BinaryOperator<int[]>: A combiner that combines two intermediary data structures. This is used for parallel streams only.
Function<int[], Integer>: The finisher function that extracts the SECOND_MAX() function from the second position in our intermediary array.

The output is now:

How to do the same thing with SQL?

Many SQL databases offer a very similar way of calculating custom aggregate functions. Here’s how to do the exact same thing with… Oracle: With the usual syntactic ceremony…


CREATE TYPE u_second_max AS OBJECT (

  -- Intermediary data structure
  MAX NUMBER,
  SECMAX NUMBER,

  -- Corresponds to the Collector.supplier() function
  STATIC FUNCTION ODCIAggregateInitialize(sctx IN OUT u_second_max) RETURN NUMBER,

  -- Corresponds to the Collector.accumulate() function
  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateIterate(self IN OUT u_second_max, value IN NUMBER) RETURN NUMBER,

  -- Corresponds to the Collector.combineer() function
  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateMerge(self IN OUT u_second_max, ctx2 IN u_second_max) RETURN NUMBER,

  -- Correspodns to the Collector.finisher() function
  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateTerminate(self IN u_second_max, returnValue OUT NUMBER, flags IN NUMBER) RETURN NUMBER
)
/

-- This is our "colletor" implementation
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE BODY u_second_max IS
  STATIC FUNCTION ODCIAggregateInitialize(sctx IN OUT u_second_max)
  RETURN NUMBER IS
  BEGIN
    SCTX := U_SECOND_MAX(0, 0);
    RETURN ODCIConst.Success;
  END;

  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateIterate(self IN OUT u_second_max, value IN NUMBER) RETURN NUMBER IS
  BEGIN
    IF VALUE > SELF.MAX THEN
      SELF.SECMAX := SELF.MAX;
      SELF.MAX := VALUE;
    ELSIF VALUE > SELF.SECMAX THEN
      SELF.SECMAX := VALUE;
    END IF;
    RETURN ODCIConst.Success;
  END;

  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateTerminate(self IN u_second_max, returnValue OUT NUMBER, flags IN NUMBER) RETURN NUMBER IS
  BEGIN
    RETURNVALUE := SELF.SECMAX;
    RETURN ODCIConst.Success;
  END;

  MEMBER FUNCTION ODCIAggregateMerge(self IN OUT u_second_max, ctx2 IN u_second_max) RETURN NUMBER IS
  BEGIN
    IF CTX2.MAX > SELF.MAX THEN
      SELF.SECMAX := SELF.MAX;
      SELF.MAX := CTX2.MAX;
    
      IF CTX2.SECMAX > SELF.SECMAX THEN
        SELF.SECMAX := CTX2.SECMAX;
      END IF;
    ELSIF CTX2.MAX > SELF.SECMAX THEN
      SELF.SECMAX := CTX2.MAX;
    END IF;
  
    RETURN ODCIConst.Success;
  END;
END;
/

-- Finally, we have to give this aggregate function a name
CREATE FUNCTION SECOND_MAX (input NUMBER) RETURN NUMBER
PARALLEL_ENABLE AGGREGATE USING u_second_max;
/

We can now run the above on the Sakila database:


SELECT 
  max(film_id), 
  second_max(film_id) 
FROM film;

To get:

MAX     SECOND_MAX
------------------
1000    999

And what’s even better, we can use the aggregate function as a window function for free!


SELECT 
  film_id,
  length,
  max(film_id) OVER (PARTITION BY length), 
  second_max(film_id) OVER (PARTITION BY length)
FROM film
ORDER BY length, film_id;

The above yields:

FILM_ID  LENGTH  MAX   SECOND_MAX
---------------------------------
15       46      730   505
469      46      730   505
504      46      730   505
505      46      730   505
730      46      730   505
237      47      869   784
247      47      869   784
393      47      869   784
398      47      869   784
407      47      869   784
784      47      869   784
869      47      869   784
2        48      931   866
410      48      931   866
575      48      931   866
630      48      931   866
634      48      931   866
657      48      931   866
670      48      931   866
753      48      931   866
845      48      931   866
866      48      931   866
931      48      931   866

Beautiful, right? PostgreSQL PostgreSQL supports a slightly more concise syntax in the CREATE AGGREGATE statement. If we don’t allow for parallelism, we can write this minimal implementation:


CREATE FUNCTION second_max_sfunc (
  state INTEGER[], data INTEGER
) RETURNS INTEGER[] AS
$$
BEGIN
  IF state IS NULL THEN
    RETURN ARRAY[data, NULL];
  ELSE
    RETURN CASE 
      WHEN state[1] > data
      THEN CASE 
        WHEN state[2] > data
        THEN state
        ELSE ARRAY[state[1], data]
      END
      ELSE ARRAY[data, state[1]]
    END;
  END IF;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
/

CREATE FUNCTION second_max_ffunc (
  state INTEGER[]
) RETURNS INTEGER AS
$$
BEGIN
  RETURN state[2];
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

CREATE AGGREGATE second_max (INTEGER) (
  SFUNC     = second_max_sfunc,
  STYPE     = INTEGER[],
  FINALFUNC = second_max_ffunc
);

Here, we use the STYPE (Collector.supplier()), the SFUNC (Collector.accumulator()), and the FINALFUNC (Collector.finisher()) specifications. Other databases Many other databases allow for specifying user defined aggregate functions. Look up your database manual’s details to learn more. They always work in the same way as a Java 8 Collector.

Tag: Custom Window Functions

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

Java 8 Stream Collector

How to do the same thing with SQL?

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