SELECT with multiple subqueries to same table

Question

I'm using the same SQL pattern over and over, and I know there has to be a better way, but I'm having trouble piecing it together. Here's a simple version of the pattern, where I'm pulling back the student's information and the last book they checked out, if one exists:

SELECT TStudents.*,
       BookName = (SELECT TOP 1 BookName 
                     FROM TBookCheckouts 
                    WHERE StudentID = TStudents.ID 
                 ORDER BY DateCheckedOut DESC),
       BookAuthor = (SELECT TOP 1 BookAuthor 
                       FROM TBookCheckouts 
                      WHERE StudentID = TStudents.ID 
                   ORDER BY DateCheckedOut DESC),
       BookCheckout = (SELECT TOP 1 DateCheckedOut 
                         FROM TBookCheckouts 
                         WHERE StudentID = TStudents.ID 
                     ORDER BY DateCheckedOut DESC)
   FROM TStudents

(For the sake of this example, please ignore the fact that TBookCheckouts should probably be split into TCheckouts and TBooks)

What I'm trying to illustrate: I tend to have a lot of subqueries for columns from the same table. I also tend to need to sort those subqueried tables by a date to get the most recent record, so it's not quite as simple (at least to me) as doing a LEFT JOIN. Notice, though, that except for which field is being returned, I'm essentially doing the same subquery 3 times. SQL Server may be smart enough to optimize that, but I'm thinking not (I definitely need to get better at reading execution plans...).

While there might be advantages to structuring it this way (sometimes this ends up being more readable, if I have tons of subqueries and sub-tables), it doesn't seem like this is particularly efficient.

I've looked into doing a LEFT JOIN from a derived table, possibly incorporating a ROW_NUMBER() and PARTITION BY, but I just can't seem to piece it all together.

Answer 1

Try

    ;WITH LatestCheckouts
    AS
    (
        SELECT  DISTINCT
                A.StudentID
            ,   A.BookName   
            ,   A.BookAuthor
            ,   A.DateCheckedOut
        FROM    TBookCheckouts A
            INNER JOIN
        (   
            SELECT  StudentID
            ,   DateCheckedOut =  MAX(DateCheckedOut)
             FROM TBookCheckouts
            GROUP  BY
                StudentID
        ) B

        ON A.StudentID = B.StudentID
        AND A.DateCheckedOut =  B.DateCheckedOut
    )       
    SELECT students.*
        ,  BookName     = checkouts.BookName
        ,  BookAuthor   = checkouts.BookAuthor
        ,  BookCheckout = checkouts.DateCheckedOut

    FROM    TStudents students
        LEFT JOIN
         LatestCheckouts checkouts
    ON  students.ID = checkouts.StudentID

Answer 2

If you wanted to get into using a Common Table Expression, you could the following query. It doesn't gain you anything, in this case, but for future:

;with LatestBookOut as 
(
    SELECT  C.StudentID, BookID, Title, Author, DateCheckedOut AS BookCheckout 
    FROM    CheckedOut AS C
    INNER JOIN ( SELECT StudentID, 
                        MAX(DateCheckedOut) AS DD 
                FROM Checkedout 
                GROUP BY StudentID) StuMAX                 
    ON StuMAX.StudentID = C.StudentID 
    AND StuMAX.DD = C.DateCheckedOut  
)

SELECT    B.BookCheckout,
        BookId, 
        Title,    
        Author, 
        S.*

FROM    LatestBookOut AS B
INNER JOIN Student  AS S ON S.ID = B.StudentID 

Answer 3

create table BookCheckout(StudentID int, CheckoutDate date, BookName varchar(10))

insert into BookCheckout values (1, '1.1.2010', 'a');
insert into BookCheckout values (1, '2.1.2010', 'b');
insert into BookCheckout values (1, '3.1.2010', 'c');
insert into BookCheckout values (2, '1.1.2010', 'd');
insert into BookCheckout values (2, '2.1.2010', 'e');

select *
from BookCheckout bc1
where CheckoutDate = (
    Select MAX(CheckoutDate) 
    from BookCheckout bc2
    where bc2.StudentID= bc1.StudentID)

StudentID    CheckoutDate    BookName
2    2010-01-02    e
1    2010-01-03    c    

Just add the join to TStudent and you are done. There is 1 problem left: You get multiple BookCheckouts per student if there are 2 or more Bookcheckouts for a Student with the same, max checkout date.

  select s.*, LastBookCheckout.*
  from TStudent s, 
    (select *
    from BookCheckout bc1
    where CheckoutDate = (
        Select MAX(CheckoutDate) 
        from BookCheckout bc2
        where bc2.StudentID= bc1.StudentID)) LastBookCheckout
  where s.ID = LastBookCheckout.StudentID

To avoid duplicates:

select * 
from (
  select *, RANK() over (partition by StudentID order by CheckoutDate desc,BookName) rnk
    from BookCheckout bc1) x
where rnk=1

I used "BookName" as second ordering criterion. => Use primary key instead to make it a real unique criterion.

Answer 4

Use:

   SELECT s.*,
          x.bookname,
          x.bookauthor,
          x.datecheckedout
     FROM TSTUDENTS s
LEFT JOIN (SELECT bc.studentid,
                  bc.bookname,
                  bc.bookauthor,
                  bc.datecheckedout,
                  ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY bc.studentid
                                        ORDER BY bc.datecheckedout DESC) AS rank
             FROM TSBOOKCHECKOUTS bc) x ON x.studentid = s.id
                                       AND x.rank = 1

If the student has not checkout any books, the bookname, bookauthor, and datecheckedout will be NULL.

Answer 5

If you are using SQL Server 2005 and later, you can use a ranking function like so:

With LastCheckout As
    (
    Select StudentId, BookName, BookAuthor, DateCheckedOut 
        , Row_Number() Over ( Partition By StudentId Order By DateCheckedOut Desc) As CheckoutRank
    From TBookCheckouts
    )
Select ..., LastCheckout.BookName, LastCheckout.BookAuthor, LastCheckout.DateCheckedOut
From TStudents
    Left Join LastCheckout 
        On LastCheckout.StudentId = TStudents.StudentId
                And LastCheckout.CheckoutRank = 1

Answer 6

On 2005 and higher, OUTER APPLY is your friend:

SELECT TStudents.*,
       t.BookName ,
       t.BookAuthor ,
       t.BookCheckout
   FROM TStudents
  OUTER APPLY(SELECT TOP 1 s.* 
                     FROM TBookCheckouts AS s
                    WHERE s.StudentID = TStudents.ID 
                 ORDER BY s.DateCheckedOut DESC) AS t

Answer 7

The answer of OMGPonies is a good one. I would write it with Common Table Expressions for readability:

WITH CheckoutsPerStudentRankedByDate AS (
    SELECT bookname, bookauthor, datecheckedout, studentid,
        ROW_NUMBER(PARTITION BY studentid ORDER BY datecheckedout DESC) AS rank
    FROM TSBOOKCHECKOUTS
)
SELECT 
    s.*, c.bookname, c.bookauthor, c.datecheckedout
FROM TSTUDENTS AS s
LEFT JOIN CheckoutsPerStudentRankedByDate AS c
    ON s.studentid = c.studentid
    AND c.rank = 1

The c.rank = 1 can be replaced by c.rank IN(1, 2) for last 2 checkouts, BETWEEN 1 AND 3 for last 3, etc...