Concatenate multiple rows in an array with SQL on PostgreSQL
SqlPostgresqlSql Problem Overview
I have a table constructed like this :
oid | identifier | value
1 | 10 | 101
2 | 10 | 102
3 | 20 | 201
4 | 20 | 202
5 | 20 | 203
I'd like to query this table to get a result like this :
identifier | values[]
10 | {101, 102}
20 | {201, 202, 203}
I can't figure a way to do that.
Is that possible? How?
Sql Solutions
Solution 1 - Sql
This is a Postgres built-in since a few versions so you no longer need to define your own, the name is array_agg()
.
test=> select array_agg(n) from generate_series(1,10) n group by n%2;
array_agg
--------------
{1,3,5,7,9}
{2,4,6,8,10}
(this is Postgres 8.4.8).
Note that no ORDER BY
is specified, so the order of the result rows depends on the grouping method used (here, hash) ie, it is not defined. Example:
test=> select n%2, array_agg(n) from generate_series(1,10) n group by (n%2);
?column? | array_agg
----------+--------------
1 | {1,3,5,7,9}
0 | {2,4,6,8,10}
test=> select (n%2)::TEXT, array_agg(n) from generate_series(1,10) n group by (n%2)::TEXT;
text | array_agg
------+--------------
0 | {2,4,6,8,10}
1 | {1,3,5,7,9}
Now, I don't know why you get {10,2,4,6,8}
and {9,7,3,1,5}
, since generate_series()
should send the rows in order.
Solution 2 - Sql
You have to create an aggregate function, e.g.
CREATE AGGREGATE array_accum (anyelement)
(
sfunc = array_append,
stype = anyarray,
initcond = '{}'
);
then
SELECT identifier, array_accum(value) AS values FROM table GROUP BY identifier;
HTH
Solution 3 - Sql
Simple example: each course have many lessons, so if i run code below:
SELECT
lessons.course_id AS course_id,
array_agg(lessons.id) AS lesson_ids
FROM lessons
GROUP BY
lessons.course_id
ORDER BY
lessons.course_id
i'd get next result:
┌───────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ course_id │ lesson_ids │
├───────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ {139,140,141,137,138,143,145,174,175,176,177,147,... │
│ 3 │ {32,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,... │
│ 5 │ {663,664,665,649,650,651,652,653,654,655,656,657,... │
│ 7 │ {985,984,1097,974,893,971,955,960,983,1045,891,97... │
│ ... │
└───────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Solution 4 - Sql
Here is the code for the requested output.
select identifier, array_agg(value)
from (
values
(1 , 10 , 101),
(2 , 10 , 102),
(3 , 20 , 201),
(4 , 20 , 202),
(5 , 20 , 203)
) as tab (oid, identifier, value)
group by identifier
order by identifier;