RE: Bug in GROUP BY/CASE/MAX?
More info -- it seems that if I change the 'NULL' to ''
(i.e. the empty string) in the CASE statements, I get the
result I'm looking for. That is, the query:
mysql> select max(case when col = 1 then val else '' end) as color
from t group by row;
returns the three rows 'orange', 'yellow', and 'green'.
Why is that? Is something broken when MySQL calculates the
aggregate for a column that contains a NULL value? Is there a doc
to explain how an aggregate function should work in the presence
of NULL?
Bob Diss, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
===================================================================
>Date: Tue, 10 Dec 02 13:57:00 EST
>From: "'Bob Diss'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "'MySQL List'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>Bug in GROUP BY/CASE/MAX?
>
>I'm seeing a strange result when I group rows and using CASE and
>MAX() to select the column I'm interested in (typical pivot-table
>operation). Here's my sample case:
>
>mysql> -- create table
>mysql> create table t (row int not null,
> col int not null,
> val varchar(255) not null);
>
>mysql> -- populate with test records
>mysql> insert into t values (1,1,'orange');
>mysql> insert into t values (1,2,'large');
>mysql> insert into t values (2,1,'yellow');
>mysql> insert into t values (2,2,'medium');
>mysql> insert into t values (3,1,'green');
>mysql> insert into t values (3,2,'small');
>
>mysql> -- group by row, extract values where col=1
>mysql> select max(case when col = 1 then val else null end) as color
> from t group by row;
>
>MySQL shows the result set as:
>
>+--------+
>| color |
>+--------+
>| orange |
>| NULL |
>| NULL |
>+--------+
>3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
>
>I would have expected MySQL to group the records into
>three sets according to row:
> (1,1,'orange')
> (1,2,'large')
>
> (2,1,'yellow')
> (2,2,'medium')
>
> (3,1,'green')
> (3,2,'small')
>
>then, for each set, apply the case expression:
> (1,1,'orange') becomes 'orange'
> (1,2,'large') becomes NULL
>
> (2,1,'yellow') becomes 'yellow'
> (2,2,'medium') becomes NULL
>
> (3,1,'green') becomes 'green'
> (3,2,'small') becomes NULL
>
>then, apply the max() aggregate:
> max('orange',NULL) becomes 'orange'
> max('yellow',NULL) becomes 'yellow'
> max('green',NULL) becomes 'green'
>
>So, I'm expecting to see a result set of three colors. This query
>works as I expect in MS-SQLServer 7.0. Why doesn't it work the same
>way in MySQL?
>
>I'm running the RPMS from MySQL.com for MySQL-max 3.23.52
>on RedHat 7.3.
>
>tia,
>
>Bob Diss, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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