MySQL - Rows to Columns
I tried to search posts, but I only found solutions for SQL Server/Access. I need a solution in MySQL (5.X).
I have a table (called history) with 3 columns: hostid, itemname, itemvalue.
If I do a select (select * from history
), it will return
+--------+----------+-----------+
| hostid | itemname | itemvalue |
+--------+----------+-----------+
| 1 | A | 10 |
+--------+----------+-----------+
| 1 | B | 3 |
+--------+----------+-----------+
| 2 | A | 9 |
+--------+----------+-----------+
| 2 | c | 40 |
+--------+----------+-----------+
How do I query the database to return something like
+--------+------+-----+-----+
| hostid | A | B | C |
+--------+------+-----+-----+
| 1 | 10 | 3 | 0 |
+--------+------+-----+-----+
| 2 | 9 | 0 | 40 |
+--------+------+-----+-----+
Solution 1:
I'm going to add a somewhat longer and more detailed explanation of the steps to take to solve this problem. I apologize if it's too long.
I'll start out with the base you've given and use it to define a couple of terms that I'll use for the rest of this post. This will be the base table:
select * from history;
+--------+----------+-----------+
| hostid | itemname | itemvalue |
+--------+----------+-----------+
| 1 | A | 10 |
| 1 | B | 3 |
| 2 | A | 9 |
| 2 | C | 40 |
+--------+----------+-----------+
This will be our goal, the pretty pivot table:
select * from history_itemvalue_pivot;
+--------+------+------+------+
| hostid | A | B | C |
+--------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 10 | 3 | 0 |
| 2 | 9 | 0 | 40 |
+--------+------+------+------+
Values in the history.hostid
column will become y-values in the pivot table. Values in the history.itemname
column will become x-values (for obvious reasons).
When I have to solve the problem of creating a pivot table, I tackle it using a three-step process (with an optional fourth step):
- select the columns of interest, i.e. y-values and x-values
- extend the base table with extra columns -- one for each x-value
- group and aggregate the extended table -- one group for each y-value
- (optional) prettify the aggregated table
Let's apply these steps to your problem and see what we get:
Step 1: select columns of interest. In the desired result, hostid
provides the y-values and itemname
provides the x-values.
Step 2: extend the base table with extra columns. We typically need one column per x-value. Recall that our x-value column is itemname
:
create view history_extended as (
select
history.*,
case when itemname = "A" then itemvalue end as A,
case when itemname = "B" then itemvalue end as B,
case when itemname = "C" then itemvalue end as C
from history
);
select * from history_extended;
+--------+----------+-----------+------+------+------+
| hostid | itemname | itemvalue | A | B | C |
+--------+----------+-----------+------+------+------+
| 1 | A | 10 | 10 | NULL | NULL |
| 1 | B | 3 | NULL | 3 | NULL |
| 2 | A | 9 | 9 | NULL | NULL |
| 2 | C | 40 | NULL | NULL | 40 |
+--------+----------+-----------+------+------+------+
Note that we didn't change the number of rows -- we just added extra columns. Also note the pattern of NULL
s -- a row with itemname = "A"
has a non-null value for new column A
, and null values for the other new columns.
Step 3: group and aggregate the extended table. We need to group by hostid
, since it provides the y-values:
create view history_itemvalue_pivot as (
select
hostid,
sum(A) as A,
sum(B) as B,
sum(C) as C
from history_extended
group by hostid
);
select * from history_itemvalue_pivot;
+--------+------+------+------+
| hostid | A | B | C |
+--------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 10 | 3 | NULL |
| 2 | 9 | NULL | 40 |
+--------+------+------+------+
(Note that we now have one row per y-value.) Okay, we're almost there! We just need to get rid of those ugly NULL
s.
Step 4: prettify. We're just going to replace any null values with zeroes so the result set is nicer to look at:
create view history_itemvalue_pivot_pretty as (
select
hostid,
coalesce(A, 0) as A,
coalesce(B, 0) as B,
coalesce(C, 0) as C
from history_itemvalue_pivot
);
select * from history_itemvalue_pivot_pretty;
+--------+------+------+------+
| hostid | A | B | C |
+--------+------+------+------+
| 1 | 10 | 3 | 0 |
| 2 | 9 | 0 | 40 |
+--------+------+------+------+
And we're done -- we've built a nice, pretty pivot table using MySQL.
Considerations when applying this procedure:
- what value to use in the extra columns. I used
itemvalue
in this example - what "neutral" value to use in the extra columns. I used
NULL
, but it could also be0
or""
, depending on your exact situation - what aggregate function to use when grouping. I used
sum
, butcount
andmax
are also often used (max
is often used when building one-row "objects" that had been spread across many rows) - using multiple columns for y-values. This solution isn't limited to using a single column for the y-values -- just plug the extra columns into the
group by
clause (and don't forget toselect
them)
Known limitations:
- this solution doesn't allow n columns in the pivot table -- each pivot column needs to be manually added when extending the base table. So for 5 or 10 x-values, this solution is nice. For 100, not so nice. There are some solutions with stored procedures generating a query, but they're ugly and difficult to get right. I currently don't know of a good way to solve this problem when the pivot table needs to have lots of columns.
Solution 2:
SELECT
hostid,
sum( if( itemname = 'A', itemvalue, 0 ) ) AS A,
sum( if( itemname = 'B', itemvalue, 0 ) ) AS B,
sum( if( itemname = 'C', itemvalue, 0 ) ) AS C
FROM
bob
GROUP BY
hostid;
Solution 3:
Another option,especially useful if you have many items you need to pivot is to let mysql build the query for you:
SELECT
GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT
CONCAT(
'ifnull(SUM(case when itemname = ''',
itemname,
''' then itemvalue end),0) AS `',
itemname, '`'
)
) INTO @sql
FROM
history;
SET @sql = CONCAT('SELECT hostid, ', @sql, '
FROM history
GROUP BY hostid');
PREPARE stmt FROM @sql;
EXECUTE stmt;
DEALLOCATE PREPARE stmt;
FIDDLE Added some extra values to see it working
GROUP_CONCAT
has a default value of 1000 so if you have a really big query change this parameter before running it
SET SESSION group_concat_max_len = 1000000;
Test:
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS history;
CREATE TABLE history
(hostid INT,
itemname VARCHAR(5),
itemvalue INT);
INSERT INTO history VALUES(1,'A',10),(1,'B',3),(2,'A',9),
(2,'C',40),(2,'D',5),
(3,'A',14),(3,'B',67),(3,'D',8);
hostid A B C D
1 10 3 0 0
2 9 0 40 5
3 14 67 0 8
Solution 4:
Taking advantage of Matt Fenwick's idea that helped me to solve the problem (a lot of thanks), let's reduce it to only one query:
select
history.*,
coalesce(sum(case when itemname = "A" then itemvalue end), 0) as A,
coalesce(sum(case when itemname = "B" then itemvalue end), 0) as B,
coalesce(sum(case when itemname = "C" then itemvalue end), 0) as C
from history
group by hostid