Use MULTISET Predicates to Examine Information Units – Java, SQL and jOOQ.

Questions that is perhaps a bit harder to unravel utilizing strange SQL are questions of the sort:

What movies have the identical actors as a given movie X?

As at all times, we’re utilizing the sakila database for this instance. What can be a attainable approach to resolve this with SQL (for instance, PostgreSQL, to be particular)? The next question provides an summary of actors per movie:

SELECT
  film_id,
  array_agg(actor_id ORDER BY actor_id) actors
FROM film_actor
GROUP BY film_id

It produces one thing like this:

|film_id|actors                            |
|-------|----------------------------------|
|1      |{1,10,20,30,40,53,108,162,188,198}|
|2      |{19,85,90,160}                    |
|3      |{2,19,24,64,123}                  |
|4      |{41,81,88,147,162}                |
|5      |{51,59,103,181,200}               |
|6      |{21,23,62,108,137,169,197}        |
|...    |...                               |

Observe that in SQL, arrays behave like lists, i.e. they preserve their ordering, so ordering the array explicitly is vital to have the ability to examine the actors with one another. Now, we wish to discover all movies that share the identical actor set, from the above:

WITH t AS (
  -- Earlier question
  SELECT
    film_id,
    array_agg(actor_id ORDER BY actor_id) actors
  FROM film_actor
  GROUP BY film_id
)
SELECT 
  array_agg(film_id ORDER BY film_id) AS movies,
  actors
FROM t
GROUP BY actors
ORDER BY rely(*) DESC, movies

The result’s now:

|movies   |actors                            |
|--------|----------------------------------|
|{97,556}|{65}                              |
|{1}     |{1,10,20,30,40,53,108,162,188,198}|
|{2}     |{19,85,90,160}                    |
|{3}     |{2,19,24,64,123}                  |
|{4}     |{41,81,88,147,162}                |
|{5}     |{51,59,103,181,200}               |
|{6}     |{21,23,62,108,137,169,197}        |
|...     |...                               |

So, as we will see, there are solely 2 movies which share the identical set of actors, and people movies are FILM_ID IN (97, 556). (The Sakila database is a bit boring as the information units are generated).

Utilizing MULTISET comparisons

Whereas the above is already fairly cool, on this article, I’d wish to showcase a lesser recognized function of the jOOQ 3.15 MULTISET assist, specifically the truth that they are often in contrast with each other.

And as is the character of SQL commonplace MULTISET, ordering is irrelevant, so we don’t have so as to add any express ORDER BY clause for such a comparability. In truth, it’s not 100% irrelevant. You can order a MULTISET for projection functions, so the ordering will likely be maintained by jOOQ. However once you use them in predicates, jOOQ will override your ORDER BY clause.

Utilizing jOOQ, we will write:

ctx.choose(FILM.FILM_ID, FILM.TITLE)
   .from(FILM)
   .the place(
       multiset(
           choose(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
           .from(FILM_ACTOR)
           .the place(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID.eq(FILM.FILM_ID))
       ).eq(multiset(
           choose(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
           .from(FILM_ACTOR)
           .the place(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID.eq(97L))
       ))
   )
   .orderBy(FILM_ID)
   .fetch();

It’s a bit much less environment friendly than a question of the earlier type because it accesses the FILM_ACTOR desk from two subqueries, although solely one among them is correlated. Utilizing the default JSONB emulation, the next question is generated:

SELECT movie.film_id, movie.title
FROM movie
WHERE (
  SELECT coalesce(
    jsonb_agg(jsonb_build_array(v0) ORDER BY t.v0),
    jsonb_build_array()
  )
  FROM (
    SELECT film_actor.actor_id AS v0
    FROM film_actor
    WHERE film_actor.film_id = movie.film_id
  ) AS t
) = (
  SELECT coalesce(
    jsonb_agg(jsonb_build_array(v0) ORDER BY t.v0),
    jsonb_build_array()
  )
  FROM (
    SELECT film_actor.actor_id AS v0
    FROM film_actor
    WHERE film_actor.film_id = 97
  ) AS t
)
ORDER BY movie.film_id

I promised that no ORDER BY clause was wanted for MULTISET, and that is nonetheless true for the jOOQ code. Nonetheless, behind the scenes, jOOQ has to order the JSON arrays by their contents to make it possible for two MULTISET values are the identical, no matter their order.

The consequence is identical two IDs because the earlier consequence confirmed:

+-------+--------------+
|film_id|title         |
+-------+--------------+
|     97|BRIDE INTRIGUE|
|    556|MALTESE HOPE  |
+-------+--------------+

Evaluating MULTISET_AGG, as a substitute

If you happen to choose utilizing joins and GROUP BY to generate the movie’s actor MULTISET, you are able to do that as nicely, with jOOQ. This time, we’re utilizing:

• Implicit joins to simplify entry to the FILM.TITLE from FILM_ACTOR
• A MULTISET predicate within the HAVING clause, utilizing MULTISET_AGG

Right here’s the jOOQ model:

ctx.choose(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID, FILM_ACTOR.movie().TITLE)
   .from(FILM_ACTOR)
   .groupBy(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID, FILM_ACTOR.movie().TITLE)
   .having(multisetAgg(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID).eq(multiset(
        choose(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
        .from(FILM_ACTOR)
        .the place(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID.eq(97L))
    )))
   .orderBy(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID)
   .fetch();

The backing, generated SQL seems like this:

SELECT film_actor.film_id, alias_75379701.title
FROM film_actor
  JOIN movie AS alias_75379701
    ON film_actor.film_id = alias_75379701.film_id
GROUP BY film_actor.film_id, alias_75379701.title
HAVING jsonb_agg(
  jsonb_build_array(film_actor.actor_id) ORDER BY film_actor.actor_id
) = (
  SELECT coalesce(
    jsonb_agg(jsonb_build_array(v0) ORDER BY t.v0),
    jsonb_build_array()
  )
  FROM (
    SELECT film_actor.actor_id AS v0
    FROM film_actor
    WHERE film_actor.film_id = 97
  ) AS t
)
ORDER BY film_actor.film_id

Discover how the implicit be a part of is expanded robotically, whereas the HAVING predicate once more makes use of the standard JSONB emulation for MULTISET and MULTISET_AGG.

Alternate options

Within the above examples, we’ve in contrast MULTISET expressions that undertaking single columns, in different phrases, Outcome<Record1<Lengthy>> nested assortment sorts. Nothing retains you from including extra columns to the equation. jOOQ will at all times be sure that your question sort checks and that the generated SQL is right.

An alternative choice to utilizing MULTISET can be utilizing ARRAY_AGG and ARRAY (now you need to ORDER BY explicitly, once more). With jOOQ:

ctx.choose(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID, FILM_ACTOR.movie().TITLE)
   .from(FILM_ACTOR)
   .groupBy(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID, FILM_ACTOR.movie().TITLE)
   .having(arrayAgg(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
        .orderBy(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID).eq(array(
            choose(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
            .from(FILM_ACTOR)
            .the place(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID.eq(97L))
            .orderBy(FILM_ACTOR.ACTOR_ID)
    )))
    .orderBy(FILM_ACTOR.FILM_ID)
    .fetch();

With SQL:

SELECT film_actor.film_id, movie.title
FROM film_actor
  JOIN movie
    ON film_actor.film_id = movie.film_id
GROUP BY film_actor.film_id, movie.title
HAVING array_agg(film_actor.actor_id ORDER BY film_actor.actor_id) = 
  ARRAY (
    SELECT film_actor.actor_id
    FROM film_actor
    WHERE film_actor.film_id = 97
    ORDER BY film_actor.actor_id
  )
ORDER BY film_actor.film_id