I have the following two tables:
1. Lecturers (LectID, Fname, Lname, degree).
2. Lecturers_Specialization (LectID, Expertise).
I want to find the lecturer with the most Specialization. When I try this, it is not working:
SELECT
L.LectID,
Fname,
Lname
FROM Lecturers L,
Lecturers_Specialization S
WHERE L.LectID = S.LectID
AND COUNT(S.Expertise) >= ALL (SELECT
COUNT(Expertise)
FROM Lecturers_Specialization
GROUP BY LectID);
But when I try this, it works:
SELECT
L.LectID,
Fname,
Lname
FROM Lecturers L,
Lecturers_Specialization S
WHERE L.LectID = S.LectID
GROUP BY L.LectID,
Fname,
Lname
HAVING COUNT(S.Expertise) >= ALL (SELECT
COUNT(Expertise)
FROM Lecturers_Specialization
GROUP BY LectID);
What is the reason? Thanks.
WHERE
clause introduces a condition on individual rows; HAVING
clause introduces a condition on aggregations, i.e. results of selection where a single result, such as count, average, min, max, or sum, has been produced from multiple rows. Your query calls for a second kind of condition (i.e. a condition on an aggregation) hence HAVING
works correctly.
As a rule of thumb, use WHERE
before GROUP BY
and HAVING
after GROUP BY
. It is a rather primitive rule, but it is useful in more than 90% of the cases.
While you're at it, you may want to re-write your query using ANSI version of the join:
SELECT L.LectID, Fname, Lname
FROM Lecturers L
JOIN Lecturers_Specialization S ON L.LectID=S.LectID
GROUP BY L.LectID, Fname, Lname
HAVING COUNT(S.Expertise)>=ALL
(SELECT COUNT(Expertise) FROM Lecturers_Specialization GROUP BY LectID)
This would eliminate WHERE
that was used as a theta join condition.