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# Need to optimize an SQL query

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The situation is as follows: I have a table that contains all entrties for a given Type each of which has a YearOfInstallation value and a couple of properties I need to use to classify them by, like this:
Length [other properties] YearOfInstallation
...    ...                ...
1300   ...                1982
815    ...                1991
1900   ...                1993
1600   ...                2002
...    ...                ...

I need to construct a query in MS Access that creates a number of groups from the data in the table:
Group                SumOfLength
...                  ...
1980-1990            1300
1991-2000            2715
2001-2003            1600
...                  ...

The easiest way to do this is by creating a separate query for each of the groups, but it seems awfully inefficient. I can't figure out if it's impossible to create such a query (since adding several where-conditions into the SQL statement in different places is illegal) or I have to use some advanced techniques. Access wizard fails hopelessly in this case. Additionally - it is not possible to create automated parametrized queries for reports (which is the case). I'd appreciate some help (running on a deadline - god I hate clients that make up stuff on the go...). Crispy EDIT: formatting [edited by - crispy on March 18, 2003 8:11:12 AM]

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it''s been a while for me with sql, but some rdms''s i use to work on allowed a GROUP BY on a calculated column. try adding a column to your SELECT that calculates the Group from the YearOfInstallation by dividing it by 10, and then using a GROUP BY for that column, e.g.,

select YearOfInstallation/10, sum(Length)
from ...
where ...
group by YearOfInstallation/10,
order by YearOfInstallation/10

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What that does is that it groups the attributes by Year/10, e g, the result is somenthing like:

199,9 1300
198,4 12342

etc.

Besides, the groups aren''t always 10 years in size. I''m actually given periods, such as 0-5, 6-10, 10-20 etc years old. In fact I believe I stated my question wrong in the original post . Damn.
Thanks for the reply, though - any other ideas?

Crispy

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Here is an easy way to do that.

Add another field to have the group inside of it.

Then use an update query.

update tblData set GroupID = GroupID from
tblData cross join tblGroups where
YearOfInstallation between group.startyear and group.endyear
and GroupID is null

You may have to use table names in-front of the fields because of ambiguous names.

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afterburn: this won''t do for a very simple reason: the groups are dynamic - the objects move from one group to the next once they became a certain number of years of age. What you''re suggesting would require updating the group numbers every year - that''s something I can''t rely on.

However, I decided it would be easier to run a bunch of Dsum''s in VBA instead and fill in the 25 or so fields one by one instead.

Thanks for the replies, though!

Crispy

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use UNIONS

{
select *
WHERE time between "bla bla" and "bla bla + 10"
}
UNION
{
select *
WHERE time between "bla bla + 10" and "bla bla + 20"
}
UNION
{
select *
WHERE time between "bla bla + 20" and "bla bla + 30"
}
....
....

etc.
of course use group by too to group those selects, this is just a simple example which will form a result table all different groups are unified in one table

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ok ok i have to edit my previous post here it is

(
SELECT ''Group 1'' AS GroupID, SUM(Length) AS Total
FROM xTable
WHERE YearOfInstallation BETWEEN 1980 AND 1985
)
UNION
(
SELECT ''Group 2'' AS GroupID, SUM(Length) AS Total
FROM xTable
WHERE YearOfInstallation BETWEEN 1986 AND 1990
)
UNION
(
SELECT ''Group 3'' AS GroupID, SUM(Length) AS Total
FROM xTable
WHERE YearOfInstallation BETWEEN 1991 AND 1995
)

this will give a result set of

GroupID Total
.......... ..........
Group 1 x
Group 2 y
Group 3 z

x,y,z being the sums (sorry about x,y,z am currently working on 3d stuff hehehh ) )

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Teehee - I remember doing something like this once - Access choked on it real bad. It''s (Access) rather useless when datasets and queries become complex and/or large. I''m not sure, but I''m relatively confident it isn''t the underlying SQL database that poses a 65k character query length limit (although you can fit a world in that) - it has a lot of other limitations and errors to produce...

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