A Fast and Soiled Approach to Concatenate Two Vaguely Associated Tables in SQL – Java, SQL and jOOQ.

Now and again I run throughout a use case for the arcane NATURAL JOIN SQL operator, and I’m much more delighted once I could make {that a} NATURAL FULL JOIN. A number of previous weblog posts on the topic embody:

Not too long ago, I stumbled upon a query on Reddit:

Is there such a factor that may be a part of two utterly completely different tables with no relation however acts like a union?

At first I although of the UNION CORRESPONDING syntax, which doesn’t actually exist in most SQL dialects, even when it’s a regular function. However then, I remembered that that is once more an ideal use case for NATURAL FULL JOIN, this time barely otherwise from the above instance the place two tables are in contrast for contents. This time, we wish to be sure that the 2 joined tables by no means have matching rows, with a view to get the UNION like behaviour.

Think about the Sakila database. In that database, we now have 3 tables containing folks, together with:

The tables are outlined as follows:

CREATE TABLE actor (
  actor_id integer NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  first_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  last_update timestamp NOT NULL
);

CREATE TABLE buyer (
  customer_id integer NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  store_id integer NOT NULL,
  first_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  electronic mail varchar(50),
  address_id integer NOT NULL,
  lively boolean NOT NULL,
  create_date date NOT NULL,
  last_update timestamp
);

CREATE TABLE employees (
  staff_id integer NOT NULL,
  first_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  address_id integer NOT NULL,
  electronic mail varchar(50),
  store_id integer NOT NULL,
  lively boolean NOT NULL,
  username varchar(16) NOT NULL,
  password varchar(40),
  last_update timestamp NOT NULL,
  image bytea
);

As might be seen, the frequent columns are actually solely (FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, LAST_UPDATE), all the opposite columns are table-specific. Utilizing the next question, we are able to concatenate all the info:

SELECT *
FROM (SELECT 'actor' AS supply, * FROM actor) AS a
NATURAL FULL JOIN (SELECT 'buyer' AS supply, * FROM buyer) AS c
NATURAL FULL JOIN (SELECT 'employees' AS supply, * FROM employees) AS s;

The end result seems one thing like this:

|supply  |first_name|last_name|last_update            |actor_id|...|customer_id|...|staff_id|...|
|--------|----------|---------|-----------------------|--------|---|-----------|---|--------|---|
|actor   |PENELOPE  |GUINESS  |2006-02-15 04:34:33.000|1       |...|           |   |        |   |
|actor   |NICK      |WAHLBERG |2006-02-15 04:34:33.000|2       |...|           |   |        |   |
|actor   |ED        |CHASE    |2006-02-15 04:34:33.000|3       |...|           |   |        |   |
|buyer|MARY      |SMITH    |2006-02-15 04:57:20.000|        |   |1          |...|        |   |
|buyer|PATRICIA  |JOHNSON  |2006-02-15 04:57:20.000|        |   |2          |...|        |   |
|buyer|LINDA     |WILLIAMS |2006-02-15 04:57:20.000|        |   |3          |...|        |   |
|employees   |Mike      |Hillyer  |2006-02-15 04:57:16.000|        |   |           |   |1       |...|
|employees   |Jon       |Stephens |2006-02-15 04:57:16.000|        |   |           |   |2       |...|

Some observations:

The matched columns (i.e. columns by the identical identify) of the NATURAL JOIN are at the start. They embody the artificial SOURCE column, which is completely different for every be a part of supply, so we by no means have a match, which was desired. We wish UNION semantics (i.e. concatenate the three tables), not match them.
The columns which might be distinctive to every tables are listed afterwards. They comprise knowledge provided that they belong to the related SOURCE

This system is clearly not for each day, however it may be sometimes helpful. So don’t underestimate the powers of NATURAL FULL JOIN

Caveats

I cheated a bit bit. The precise Sakila database schema has a battle between CUSTOMER and STAFF tables:

CREATE TABLE buyer (
  customer_id integer NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  store_id integer NOT NULL,
  first_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  last_name varchar(45) NOT NULL,
  electronic mail varchar(50),
  address_id integer NOT NULL,
  activebool boolean NOT NULL,
  create_date date NOT NULL,
  last_update timestamp
  lively integer NOT NULL, -- That is an integer
);

With this desk definition, I acquired this error for my question:

SQL Error [42804]: ERROR: JOIN/USING varieties integer and boolean can’t be matched

So, to repair this, I patched the CUSTOMER desk definition:

-- Patch
WITH buyer AS (
  SELECT 
    customer_id, 
    store_id, 
    first_name, 
    last_name, 
    electronic mail, 
    address_id, 
    activebool as lively, 
    create_date, 
    last_update 
  FROM buyer
)

-- Authentic question
SELECT *
FROM (SELECT 'actor' AS supply, * FROM actor) AS a
NATURAL FULL JOIN (SELECT 'buyer' AS supply, * FROM buyer) AS c
NATURAL FULL JOIN (SELECT 'employees' AS supply, * FROM employees) AS s;

Wishing that BigQuery’s helpful * REPLACE (...) syntax was extra broadly out there.