SQL query for finding the longest name and shortest name in a table

Question

I have a table with one of the columns is of type varchar(city). and want to find the longest and shortest of values stored in that column.

select a.city, a.city         


        

Answer 1

I used the WITH clause for Oracle to save the shortest /longest names in a temporary variable rather than querying inside the main "from" clause. SQL WITH clause example

WITH shortnames AS
(SELECT city, length(city) 
 FROM station 
 ORDER BY length(city) asc, city),

 longnames AS
 (SELECT city, length(city) 
  FROM station
  ORDER BY length(city) desc, city)

SELECT * FROM shortnames WHERE ROWNUM=1
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM longnames WHERE ROWNUM=1;