On 31 Jul 2002, Jinn Koriech wrote:
> hi all, > > here's a query i've never been able to improve: > > i have an old data set and a new data set - in this case uk postcodes > with eastings and northings. i want to extract the new and changed > postcodes from the new set. to get the changed entries i use a join and > it works okay: > > SELECT n.postcode, n.easting, n.northing FROM v_postcode_new n, > v_postcode_old o WHERE n.postcode = o.postcode AND (n.easting <> > o.lattitude OR n.northing <> o.longitude); > > > but then to get the entirely new items out i use a sub query which takes > for ever > > SELECT DISTINCT * FROM v_postcode_new WHERE postcode NOT IN ( SELECT > postcode FROM v_postcode_old ) ORDER BY postcode ASC; > > does anyone know of a quicker way to accomplish this? i guess there > must be some cleaver way around it, but it's beyond me. Hmm, a couple of possible other queries: -- Do you really need the distinct? select distinct * from v_postcode_new where not exists ( select * from v_postcode_old where v_postcode_old.postcode= v_postcode_new.postcode); Or maybe (just thought of this, think it should work, but am not entirely sure) select distinct v_postcode_new.* from v_postcode_new left outer join v_postcode_old using(postcode) where v_postcode_old.postcode is null; ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly