Eric try:
select num, p1,p2 ... from contacts
inner join groups using (contacts.num=groups.contactNum)
where groups.groupNum=a
and contact.p3=b
and not exists (
select 1 from groups g2
where g2.contactNum = groups.contactNum and
g2.groupNum != a);
or
select num, p1,p2 ... from contacts
inner join groups using (contacts.num=groups.contactNum)
where groups.groupNum=a
and contact.p3=b
and groups.groupNum in (
select contactNum from groups group by contactNum having count(*) =
1);
The IN version may still be faster as the sub-select should be evaluated
only once;
JLL
eric soroos wrote:
>
> I'm having trouble subtracting groups from other groups.
>
> I've got a data model that has the following essential features:
>
> create table contacts (num int, properties....);
> create table groups (groupNum int, contactNum int);
>
> Where not all contacts will be in a group, some groups will contain most contacts,
>and there will be something like hundreds of groups and tens of thousands of
>contacts. I allow people to build groups using criteria, which I need to
>programatically translate to sql.
>
> One somewhat common pattern is:
>
> Select all contacts in group a, who have property b, and who aren't in groups
>c,d,e,f...
>
> My first shot was subqueries:
>
> select num, p1,p2 ... from contacts
> inner join groups using (contacts.num=groups.contactNum)
> where groups.groupNum=a
> and contact.p3=b
> and not num in (select contactNum from groups where groupNum=c)
> and not num in (select contactNum from groups where groupNum=d)
> and not num in (select contactNum from groups where groupNum=e)
> and not num in (select contactNum from groups where groupNum=f)
>
> This is .... slow. agonizingly so.
>
> With an inner join, I'm not convinced that the subtraction is actually correct., but
>it is much faster. Unfortunatley, faster incorrect answers are rarely helpful.
>
> Outer joins seem even worse than subselects for speed, but it does appear to give
>the correct answer. (example with a single join.)
>
> select num from contacts
> left outer join groups
> on (contacts.num=groups.contactNum
> and groups.groupNum=b)
> where
> dl_groupDonor._groupNum is null
> and p3=c
>
> I've got to be missing something here, because this is much slower from the (slow)
>procedural system that I'm porting from.
>
> I've been avoiding using union / intersect since I don't really ever know what
>columns are going to be in the query. perhaps I should revisit that decision and try
>to work around it.
>
> eric
>
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