It seems to me that this is an operation with two phases.
- Determine which parts of the phone call use which rates at which time.
- Sum the times in each of the rates.
Phase 1 is trickier than Phase 2. I've worked the example in IBM Informix Dynamic Server (IDS) because I don't have MS SQL Server. The ideas should translate easily enough. The INTO TEMP clause creates a temporary table with an appropriate schema; the table is private to the session and vanishes when the session ends (or you explicitly drop it). In IDS, you can also use an explicit CREATE TEMP TABLE statement and then INSERT INTO temp-table SELECT ... as a more verbose way of doing the same job as INTO TEMP.
As so often in SQL questions on SO, you've not provided us with a schema, so everyone has to invent a schema that might, or might not, match what you describe.
Let's assume your data is in two tables. The first table has the call log records, the basic information about the calls made, such as the phone making the call, the number called, the time when the call started and the duration of the call:
CREATE TABLE clr -- call log record
(
phone_id VARCHAR(24) NOT NULL, -- billing plan
called_number VARCHAR(24) NOT NULL, -- needed to validate call
start_time TIMESTAMP NOT NULL, -- date and time when call started
duration INTEGER NOT NULL -- duration of call in seconds
CHECK(duration > 0),
PRIMARY KEY(phone_id, start_time)
-- other complicated range-based constraints omitted!
-- foreign keys omitted
-- there would probably be an auto-generated number here too.
);
INSERT INTO clr(phone_id, called_number, start_time, duration)
VALUES('650-656-3180', '650-794-3714', '2009-02-26 15:17:19', 186234);
For convenience (mainly to save writing the addition multiple times), I want a copy of the clr table with the actual end time:
SELECT phone_id, called_number, start_time AS call_start, duration,
start_time + duration UNITS SECOND AS call_end
FROM clr
INTO TEMP clr_end;
The tariff data is stored in a simple table:
CREATE TABLE tariff
(
tariff_code CHAR(1) NOT NULL -- code for the tariff
CHECK(tariff_code IN ('P','N','O'))
PRIMARY KEY,
rate_start TIME NOT NULL, -- time when rate starts
rate_end TIME NOT NULL, -- time when rate ends
rate_charged DECIMAL(7,4) NOT NULL -- rate charged (cents per second)
);
INSERT INTO tariff(tariff_code, rate_start, rate_end, rate_charged)
VALUES('N', '00:00:00', '08:00:00', 0.9876);
INSERT INTO tariff(tariff_code, rate_start, rate_end, rate_charged)
VALUES('P', '08:00:00', '19:00:00', 2.3456);
INSERT INTO tariff(tariff_code, rate_start, rate_end, rate_charged)
VALUES('O', '19:00:00', '23:59:59', 1.2345);
I debated whether the tariff table should use TIME or INTERVAL values; in this context, the times are very similar to intervals relative to midnight, but intervals can be added to timestamps where times cannot. I stuck with TIME, but it made things messy.
The tricky part of this query is generating the relevant date and time ranges for each tariff without loops. In fact, I ended up using a loop embedded in a stored procedure to generate a list of integers. (I also used a technique that is specific to IBM Informix Dynamic Server, IDS, using the table ID numbers from the system catalog as a source of contiguous integers in the range 1..N, which works for numbers from 1 to 60 in version 11.50.)
CREATE PROCEDURE integers(lo INTEGER DEFAULT 0, hi INTEGER DEFAULT 0)
RETURNING INT AS number;
DEFINE i INTEGER;
FOR i = lo TO hi STEP 1
RETURN i WITH RESUME;
END FOR;
END PROCEDURE;
In the simple case (and the most common case), the call falls in a single-tariff period; the multi-period calls add the excitement.
Let's assume we can create a table expression that matches this schema and covers all the timestamp values we might need:
CREATE TEMP TABLE tariff_date_time
(
tariff_code CHAR(1) NOT NULL,
rate_start TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
rate_end TIMESTAMP NOT NULL,
rate_charged DECIMAL(7,4) NOT NULL
);
Fortunately, you haven't mentioned weekend rates, so you charge the customers the same
rates at the weekend as during the week. However, the answer should adapt to such
situations if at all possible. If you were to get as complex as giving weekend rates on
public holidays, except that at Christmas or New Year, you charge peak rate instead of
weekend rate because of the high demand, then you would be best off storing the rates in a permanent tariff_date_time table.
The first step in populating tariff_date_time is to generate a list of dates which are relevant to the calls:
SELECT DISTINCT EXTEND(DATE(call_start) + number, YEAR TO SECOND) AS call_date
FROM clr_end,
TABLE(integers(0, (SELECT DATE(call_end) - DATE(call_start) FROM clr_end)))
AS date_list(number)
INTO TEMP call_dates;
The difference between the two date values is an integer number of days (in IDS).
The procedure integers generates values from 0 to the number of days covered by the call and stores the result in a temp table. For the more general case of multiple records, it might be better to calculate the minimum and maximum dates and generate the dates in between rather than generate dates multiple times and then eliminate them with the DISTINCT clause.
Now use a cartesian product of the tariff table with the call_dates table to generate the rate information for each day. This is where the tariff times would be neater as intervals.
SELECT r.tariff_code,
d.call_date + (r.rate_start - TIME '00:00:00') AS rate_start,
d.call_date + (r.rate_end - TIME '00:00:00') AS rate_end,
r.rate_charged
FROM call_dates AS d, tariff AS r
INTO TEMP tariff_date_time;
Now we need to match the call log record with the tariffs that apply. The condition is a standard way of dealing with overlaps - two time periods overlap if the end of the first is later than the start of the second and if the start of the first is before the end of the second:
SELECT tdt.*, clr_end.*
FROM tariff_date_time tdt, clr_end
WHERE tdt.rate_end > clr_end.call_start
AND tdt.rate_start < clr_end.call_end
INTO TEMP call_time_tariff;
Then we need to establish the start and end times for the rate. The start time for the rate is the later of the start time for the tariff and the start time of the call. The end time for the rate is the earlier of the end time for the tariff and the end time of the call:
SELECT phone_id, called_number, tariff_code, rate_charged,
call_start, duration,
CASE WHEN rate_start < call_start THEN call_start
ELSE rate_start END AS rate_start,
CASE WHEN rate_end >= call_end THEN call_end
ELSE rate_end END AS rate_end
FROM call_time_tariff
INTO TEMP call_time_tariff_times;
Finally, we need to sum the times spent at each tariff rate, and take that time (in seconds) and multiply by the rate charged. Since the result of SUM(rate_end - rate_start) is an INTERVAL, not a number, I had to invoke a conversion function to convert the INTERVAL into a DECIMAL number of seconds, and that (non-standard) function is iv_seconds:
SELECT phone_id, called_number, tariff_code, rate_charged,
call_start, duration,
SUM(rate_end - rate_start) AS tariff_time,
rate_charged * iv_seconds(SUM(rate_end - rate_start)) AS tariff_cost
FROM call_time_tariff_times
GROUP BY phone_id, called_number, tariff_code, rate_charged,
call_start, duration;
For the sample data, this yielded the data (where I'm not printing the phone number and called number for compactness):
N 0.9876 2009-02-26 15:17:19 186234 0 16:00:00 56885.760000000
O 1.2345 2009-02-26 15:17:19 186234 0 10:01:11 44529.649500000
P 2.3456 2009-02-26 15:17:19 186234 1 01:42:41 217111.081600000
That's a very expensive call, but the telco will be happy with that. You can poke at any of the intermediate results to see how the answer is derived. You can use fewer temporary tables at the cost of some clarity.
For a single call, this will not be much different than running the code in VB in the client. For a lot of calls, this has the potential to be more efficient. I'm far from convinced that recursion is necessary in VB - straight iteration should be sufficient.