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Typical errors at solution of exercises. Exercise 25

S. Moiseenko

Find the printer makers which also produce PCs with the lowest RAM and the highest-speed processor among PCs with the lowest RAM. Result set: maker.

The phrase “ which are having least RAM-capacity”- it is the tag line. It is not redundant, as it could be seemed at first sight. It is not enough to define all the models with the fastest processor amongst all the PC s , which have least RAM capacity .

I am explaining all that I have said above for demonstration of the wrong decisions. The amount of them has been grown very much :-). Here is the first example:

SELECT c.maker FROM Product c,
   (SELECT b.model , MAX( b.speed ) speed
       FROM Pc b
       WHERE b.ram IN (SELECT MIN( a.ram ) FROM Pc a)
       GROUP BY b.model ) t 
   WHERE c.model = t.model AND EXISTS
      (SELECT d.model FROM Printer d, Product e
          WHERE d.model = e.model AND e.maker = c.maker )

  1. Error in the subquery

(SELECT b.model , MAX( b.speed ) speed
    FROM Pc b
    WHERE b.ram IN (SELECT MIN( a.ram ) FROM Pc a)
    GROUP BY b.model ) t

This example selects PC models, which have least RAM capacity, and for each of these models is defined PC with the fastest processor. The m istake is that the fastest processor is needed to define for all PCs with least RAM capacity, but not for each model. Moreover, if the maker will have 2 PC models with least RAM capacity, he will be caught twice in the result set, whereas the redundancy reduction in query is absent from the solution (DISTINCT, for example).

  1. Error in defining of the makers of printers

EXISTS (SELECT d.model FROM Printer d, Product e
WHERE d.model = e.model AND e.maker = c.maker )

In this example the availability of the printers among the makers of PC models is defining in the Printer table. The task says that the required maker also produces printers, but nothing told about availability of the models in the table Printer. I.e., if the table Product contains the maker of printers, models of which are absent from the table Printer, then the considered query will ignore it, although it are agreeable to the task condition.

But we have not yet detected the main error of the decision. We will be exploring this problem, having removed the previous errors.

SELECT DISTINCT maker
   FROM Product
   WHERE type = 'printer' AND maker IN
      ( SELECT maker FROM Product WHERE model IN (
           SELECT model FROM Pc
              WHERE speed = (SELECT MAX( speed) FROM
                 (SELECT speed FROM Pc WHERE
                     ram = (SELECT MIN(ram) FROM Pc)) AS z4)
                 )
      )

Duplicates are removed in this solution, the makers of printers are defined correctly, and the overall maximum of the fastest processor among models with the least RAM capacity is defined:

WHERE speed = (SELECT MAX( speed) FROM
   (SELECT speed FROM Pc WHERE
   ram = (SELECT MIN(ram) FROM Pc)) AS z4)

What is not yet considered? We shall recall the phrase of the above in the beginning of the chapter: “which are having least RAM capacity”. In this solution, we define only models, which have the processor speed coinciding with the maximal processor speed for models with the least RAM capacity. I explain in terms of an example. If the least RAM capacity for PC in the database is 64 and there is such PC models:

speed

ram

600

64

600

128

450

64

The code used for definition of the needed processor speed

SELECT MAX( speed) FROM
   (SELECT speed FROM Pc WHERE
   ram = (SELECT MIN(ram) FROM Pc)) AS z4

give us 600. Really, it is the maximal processor speed for models with the least RAM capacity (64). Then we select the models with this speed, among these is the model {600, 128}, although it does not conform with the task conditions. If the maker of this model is also producing printers (and he is producing!), and he is not the maker of the model {600, 64}, we'll get the “Incorrect” when checking the query on the site. Of course the right selection is only the model {600, 64} . I h ope it isn't difficult to solve this task now :-).

» Given examples here can be done directly on the website by selecting the check box “Without checking” on the page with SELECT exercises.

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