Discussion 12: SQL

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Getting Started

To get help from a TA, If you do not have an in-person TA, you can reach your TA using this Zoom link.

If there are fewer than 3 people in your group, feel free to merge your group with another group in the room.

Everybody say your name, and then share your favorite restaurant, cafe, or boba shop near campus. (Yes, Kingpin Donuts counts as a restaurant.)

Select Statements

A SELECT statement describes an output table based on input rows. To write one:

  1. Describe the input rows using FROM and WHERE clauses.
  2. Format and order the output rows and columns using SELECT and ORDER BY clauses.

SELECT (Step 2) FROM (Step 1) WHERE (Step 1) ORDER BY (Step 2);

Step 1 may involve joining tables (using commas) to form input rows that consist of two or more rows from existing tables.

The WHERE and ORDER BY clauses are optional.

Pizza Time

The pizzas table contains the names, opening, and closing hours of great pizza places in Berkeley. The meals table contains typical meal times (for college students). A pizza place is open for a meal if the meal time is at or within the open and close times.

CREATE TABLE pizzas AS
  SELECT "Artichoke" AS name, 12 AS open, 15 AS close UNION
  SELECT "La Val's"         , 11        , 22          UNION
  SELECT "Sliver"           , 11        , 20          UNION
  SELECT "Cheeseboard"      , 16        , 23          UNION
  SELECT "Emilia's"         , 13        , 18;

CREATE TABLE meals AS
  SELECT "breakfast" AS meal, 11 AS time UNION
  SELECT "lunch"            , 13         UNION
  SELECT "dinner"           , 19         UNION
  SELECT "snack"            , 22;

Q1: Open Early

You'd like to have pizza before 13 o'clock (1pm). Create a opening table with the names of all pizza places that open before 13 o'clock, listed in reverse alphabetical order.

opening table:

name
Sliver
La Val's
Artichoke
Run in 61A Code
To order by name in reverse alphabitical order, write ORDER BY name DESC.

Q2: Study Session

You're planning to study at a pizza place from the moment it opens until 14 o'clock (2pm). Create a table study with two columns, the name of each pizza place and the duration of the study session you would have if you studied there (the difference between when it opens and 14 o'clock). For pizza places that are not open before 2pm, the duration should be zero. Order the rows by decreasing duration.

Hint: Use an expression of the form MAX(_, 0) to make sure a result is not below 0.

study table:

name duration
La Val's 3
Sliver 3
Artichoke 2
Emilia's 1
Cheeseboard 0
Run in 61A Code
To order by decreasing duration, first name the column with SELECT ..., ... AS duration ..., then ORDER BY duration DESC.

Q3: Late Night Snack

What's still open for a late night snack? Create a late table with one column named status that has a sentence describing the closing time of each pizza place that closes at or after snack time. Important: Don't use any numbers in your SQL query! Instead, use a join to compare each restaurant's closing time to the time of a snack. The rows may appear in any order.

late table:

status
Cheeseboard closes at 23
La Val's closes at 22

The || operator in SQL concatenates two strings together, just like + in Python.

Run in 61A Code
To compare a pizza place's close time to the time of a snack:
  • join the pizzas and meals tables using FROM pizzas, meals
  • use only rows where the meal is a "snack"
  • compare the time of the snack to the close of the pizza place.
Use name || " closes at " || close to create the sentences in the resulting table. The || operator concatenates values into strings.

Q4: Double Pizza

If two meals are more than 6 hours apart, then there's nothing wrong with going to the same pizza place for both, right? Create a double table with three columns. The first column is the earlier meal, the second column is the later meal, and the name column is the name of a pizza place. Only include rows that describe two meals that are more than 6 hours apart and a pizza place that is open for both of the meals. The rows may appear in any order.

double table:

first second name
breakfast dinner La Val's
breakfast dinner Sliver
breakfast snack La Val's
lunch snack La Val's
Run in 61A Code
Use FROM meals AS a, meals AS b, pizzas so that each row has info about two meals and a pizza place. Then you can write a WHERE clause that compares both a.time and b.time to open and close and each other to ensure all the relevant conditions are met.

Document the Occasion

Please all fill out the attendance form (one submission per person per week).

If you finish early, maybe go get pizza together...