Interrogation after SELECT

Improving Query Performance in SQL Server

Dean Smith

Founder, Atamai Analytics

Processing order after SELECT

1.  FROM

2.  ON

3.  JOIN

4.  WHERE

5.  GROUP BY

6.  HAVING


7.  SELECT


8.  DISTINCT

9.  ORDER BY

10. TOP

All is not always good

SELECT *
FROM PlayerStats;

SELECT * is great for data interrogation but potentially bad for performance

PlayerName	Team	Position	...	...
Alex Abrines	OKC	SG	...	...
Quincy Acy	BRK	PF	...	...
Steven Adams	OKC	C	...	...
Bam Adebayo	MIA	C	...	...
...	...	...	...	...

All you need is better

SELECT PlayerName, 
        Team, 
        TotalPoints
FROM PlayerStats;

Only select the columns required

PlayerName	Team	TotalPoints
Alex Abrines	OKC	353
Quincy Acy	BRK	411
Steven Adams	OKC	1056
Bam Adebayo	MIA	477
...	...	...

All in a JOIN

SELECT * 
FROM Players p
  INNER JOIN PlayerStats ps
  ON ps.PlayerName = p.PlayerName;

SELECT * in joins returns duplicates of joining columns

PlayerName	Age	PlayerName	Team	...
Alex Abrines	24	Alex Abrines	OKC	...
Quincy Acy	27	Quincy Acy	BRK	...
Steven Adams	24	Steven Adams	OKC	...
Bam Adebayo	20	Bam Adebayo	MIA	...
...	...	...	...	...

All you need in a JOIN

SELECT p.PlayerName, 
       ps.Team, 
       p.Country, 
       ps.Position
FROM Players p
  INNER JOIN PlayerStats ps
  ON ps.PlayerName = p.PlayerName;

Explicitly state the columns to be returned and from what tables

PlayerName	Country	Team	Position
Alex Abrines	Spain	OKC	SG
Quincy Acy	USA	BRK	PF
Steven Adams	New Zealand	OKC	C
Bam Adebayo	USA	MIA	C
...	...	...	...

Rows at the TOP

SELECT TOP 5 PlayerName, 
        Team, 
        TotalPoints
FROM PlayerStats;

PlayerName	Team	TotalPoints
Alex Abrines	OKC	353
Quincy Acy	BRK	411
Steven Adams	OKC	1056
Bam Adebayo	MIA	477
Arron Afflalo	ORL	179

Percentage at the TOP

SELECT TOP 1 PERCENT PlayerName, 
        Team, 
        TotalPoints
FROM PlayerStats;

PlayerName	Team	TotalPoints
Alex Abrines	OKC	353
Quincy Acy	BRK	411
Steven Adams	OKC	1056
Bam Adebayo	MIA	477
Arron Afflalo	ORL	179
Cole Aldrich	MIN	12
LaMarcus Aldridge	SAS	1735

There is no top or bottom

SELECT TOP 5 PlayerName, 
        Team, 
        TotalPoints
FROM PlayerStats
ORDER BY TotalPoints DESC

PlayerName	Team	TotalPoints
LeBron James	CLE	2251
James Harden	HOU	2191
Anthony Davis	NOP	2110
Russell Westbrook	OKC	2028
Giannis Antetokounmpo	MIL	2014

The other row limiters

Row limiter	Ordering clause	Database
TOP	ORDER BY	Microsoft SQL Server
ROWNUM	ORDER BY	Oracle
LIMIT	ORDER BY	PostgreSQL

Where to use ORDER BY

Use ORDER BY in a query:

To interrogate the data
When there is a good reason for the final returned results to be sorted

Let's practice!

Improving Query Performance in SQL Server