Database: Select last non-null entries

Question

Here\'s a question I\'ve been racking my brain over. Let\'s say I have a table that has a series of timestamps and a part number as the primary key. The table stores incremental

Answer 1

Rather than using a UNION, it sounds like you really want subqueries in the field list. That is, instead of (SELECT ...) UNION (SELECT ...) UNION (SELECT ...), you want SELECT (SELECT ...), (SELECT ...), (SELECT ...).

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For example:

SELECT part,
       ( SELECT x_pos
           FROM part_changes
          WHERE part = pc.part
            AND x_pos IS NOT NULL
          ORDER
             BY timestamp DESC
          LIMIT 1
       ) AS x_pos,
       ( SELECT y_pos
           FROM part_changes
          WHERE part = pc.part
            AND y_pos IS NOT NULL
          ORDER
             BY timestamp DESC
          LIMIT 1
       ) AS y_pos,
       ( SELECT status
           FROM part_changes
          WHERE part = pc.part
            AND status IS NOT NULL
          ORDER
             BY timestamp DESC
          LIMIT 1
       ) AS status
  FROM ( SELECT DISTINCT
                part
           FROM part_changes
       ) AS pc
;

But at this point I would really consider writing a stored procedure.

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Alternatively:

SELECT DISTINCT
       part,
       FIRST_VALUE(x_pos) OVER
         ( PARTITION BY part
               ORDER BY CASE WHEN x_pos IS NULL
                             THEN NULL
                             ELSE TIMESTAMP
                         END DESC NULLS LAST
         ) AS x_pos,
       FIRST_VALUE(y_pos) OVER
         ( PARTITION BY part
               ORDER BY CASE WHEN y_pos IS NULL
                             THEN NULL
                             ELSE TIMESTAMP
                         END DESC NULLS LAST
         ) AS y_pos,
       FIRST_VALUE(status) OVER
         ( PARTITION BY part
               ORDER BY CASE WHEN status IS NULL
                             THEN NULL
                             ELSE TIMESTAMP
                         END DESC NULLS LAST
         ) AS status
  FROM part_changes
;