seeking advice: is #temp table for calendar days-of-year possible for a sproc that supports a websites reporting needs

  • Problem:

    (1) am disallowed to create a calendar table in database.

    (2)A sproc used at my company to support the reporting tab of our company's website doesn't return property_names if no activity occurred between supplied @start and @end times.

    (3) business users have requested property_names be listed even when no activity

    EG.

    SELECT property_name

    FROM property_activity

    WHERE activity_date BETWEEN @start_date and @end_date

    AND activity_type = 'F'

    Is the next best solution to JOIN to a calendar #temp table?

  • Depends.

    From info you posted it appears you have a denormalized entity with property names and activity => no activity means no record in table, so right join to a calendar table would return null property_name for dates without activity.

  • You'll need to use the "property master" table with a left join, something like below:

    SELECT property_name, pa.activity_date

    FROM properties p

    LEFT OUTER JOIN property_activity pa ON

    pa.property_name = p.property_name AND

    pa.activity_date BETWEEN @start_date and @end_date AND

    pa.activity_type = 'F'

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

  • Yes, a right join to a calendar table will create nulls for property_name column on days no activity occurred. how about i full outer joined to property activity table on date, won't it create placeholders so I can aggregate counts of activities by property_name and return property_name even if noactivities logged for supplied date? Left outer join is same as left join...I am wondering if better solution than temp table join? Users are supplying start and end date parameters. Looking for common practices.

  • You're assuming that every property name will be in the activity table. That may be a valid assumption for your particular data set up, I don't know. You'd definitely have to scan more of the table than just your current time period to get all the property names.

    But you should have a property "master" table somewhere with property name in it. That's the best place to get the property name from.

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

  • In fact, the "property name" should not really be in the activity table, just the property_id that represents that property name.

    SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) "It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I'm wearing Milk-Bone underwear." "Norm", on "Cheers". Also from "Cheers", from "Carla": "You need to know 3 things about Tortelli men: Tortelli men draw women like flies; Tortelli men treat women like flies; Tortelli men's brains are in their flies".

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply