Re: query like this???

On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 11:12:48PM +0700, Akbar wrote:
>
> I want to ask what query will give me this output:
> month     sum
> -----     ---
> 2         0
> 3         0
> 4         9
> 5         6
> 6         0
> 7         6
> 8         0
>
> but with this condition:
> WHERE extract (month FROM datestock::timestamp) BETWEEN 2 AND 8

Here's one way:

SELECT g.month, coalesce(sum(s.dummy), 0) AS sum
FROM generate_series(2, 8) AS g(month)
LEFT OUTER JOIN stupid AS s ON extract(month FROM s.datestock) = g.month
GROUP BY g.month
ORDER by g.month;

The generate_series() function comes with PostgreSQL 8.0 and later,
but it's easily written in earlier versions.  Here's a simple
example:

CREATE FUNCTION generate_series(integer, integer)
RETURNS SETOF integer AS '
DECLARE
    i  integer;
BEGIN
    FOR i IN $1 .. $2 LOOP
    RETURN NEXT i;
    END LOOP;
    RETURN;
END;
' LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE STRICT;

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/