Removing only contiguous/adjacent duplicate records from a rowset

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Removing only contiguous/adjacent duplicate records from a rowset

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praveen_vejandla

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 5:01 AM

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In SQL 2008, is there any way to remove only adjacent/contiguous duplicate records? Only if a record repeats immediately, then it should be deleted.

Ex:

id value name
-- ------ -------
1 10 test
2 5 prod
3 10 test
4 4 test
5 4 test
6 10 test

Only records with id 4,5 should be deleted.

Records with id 1,3,6 should be preserved because value, name combination ( 10, test ) is duplicate but not contiguous.

Is there any way to achieve this result using TSQL?

Post #1376408

ThomasRushton

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 5:21 AM

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This appears to do what you want:

use tempdb
go

declare @testtable table (id int, value int, name char(4))

insert into @testtable values
(1, 10, 'test'), (2, 5, 'prod'), (3, 10, 'test'), (4, 4, 'test'), (5, 4, 'test'), (6, 10, 'test')

select * from @testtable

delete from @testtable
WHERE id in (
select t2.id from @testtable t1 INNER JOIN @testtable t2 ON t1.id = t2.id - 1 INNER JOIN @testtable t3 ON t2.id = t3.id-1
WHERE t1.name = t2.name and t2.name = t3.name)

select * from @testtable

Post #1376411

Cadavre

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 5:45 AM

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ThomasRushton (10/24/2012)

This appears to do what you want:

use tempdb
go

declare @testtable table (id int, value int, name char(4))

insert into @testtable values
(1, 10, 'test'), (2, 5, 'prod'), (3, 10, 'test'), (4, 4, 'test'), (5, 4, 'test'), (6, 10, 'test')

select * from @testtable

delete from @testtable
WHERE id in (
select t2.id from @testtable t1 INNER JOIN @testtable t2 ON t1.id = t2.id - 1 INNER JOIN @testtable t3 ON t2.id = t3.id-1
WHERE t1.name = t2.name and t2.name = t3.name)

select * from @testtable

That's a lot of joins for a simple operation.

Maybe try something like this instead?

DELETE a 
FROM @testtable a
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 
              FROM @testtable b 
              WHERE (a.id = b.id+1 OR a.id = b.id-1) 
              AND a.NAME = b.NAME AND a.value = b.value);

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Post #1376413

EamonSQL

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 6:33 AM

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select from the table using the ROW_NUMBER() function ordering by id and partitioning by value.
Wrap in brackets giving you a derived table.

Run a delete command against the table and joining to the derived table on the id and where rownum > 1

That should sort you out.

Eamon

Post #1376439

ChrisM@Work

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 6:49 AM

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EamonSQL (10/24/2012)

Don't you mean a COUNT(*), and deleting where COUNT(*) > 1?

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Post #1376444

Cadavre

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 6:53 AM

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EamonSQL (10/24/2012)

The OP said: -

praveen_vejandla (10/24/2012)

id value name
-- ------ -------
1 10 test
2 5 prod
3 10 test
4 4 test
5 4 test
6 10 test

Only records with id 4,5 should be deleted.

Here's some sample data to play with: -

DECLARE @testtable TABLE (id INT, value INT, NAME CHAR(4));

INSERT INTO @testtable
VALUES (1, 10, 'test'), (2, 5, 'prod'), (3, 10, 'test'), (4, 4, 'test'), (5, 4, 'test'), (6, 10, 'test');

So the expected result after you have deleted the bad rows is: -

id          value       NAME
----------- ----------- ----
1           10          test
2           5           prod
3           10          test
6           10          test

So, let's code up what you just described: -

DELETE a
FROM @testtable a
INNER JOIN (SELECT id, value, NAME,
            ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY value ORDER BY id) AS rownum
            FROM @testtable) b ON a.id = b.id
WHERE b.rownum > 1;

OK, now we'll run it against the sample data and the result is: -

id          value       NAME
----------- ----------- ----
1           10          test
2           5           prod
4           4           test

Ah, it seems you've deleted a few extra rows and kept a row that we wanted to delete.

OK, let's take a look at ThomasRushton's answer: -

DELETE
FROM @testtable
WHERE id IN (SELECT t2.id
             FROM @testtable t1
             INNER JOIN @testtable t2 ON t1.id = t2.id - 1
             INNER JOIN @testtable t3 ON t2.id = t3.id - 1
             WHERE t1.NAME = t2.NAME AND t2.NAME = t3.NAME               
             );

For me, there are two issues here. The first is that we're touching the table 4 times, which is unnecessary. The second is that we're only looking at "name" to see if a record is a duplicate. (If the OP agrees with this as the requirement, then we can scratch my second issue).

What about the result? Does it give the correct answer from the sample data?

id          value       NAME
----------- ----------- ----
1           10          test
2           5           prod
3           10          test
6           10          test

Yes is does! Excellent.

Now, let's look at my answer.

DELETE a 
FROM @testtable a
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT 1 
              FROM @testtable b 
              WHERE (a.id = b.id+1 OR a.id = b.id-1) 
              AND a.NAME = b.NAME AND a.value = b.value);

This time we're only touching the table twice and we're looking at both name and value to determine a duplicate. But does it produce the correct result based on the sample data?

id          value       NAME
----------- ----------- ----
1           10          test
2           5           prod
3           10          test
6           10          test

Again, yes it does.

A question for the OP though - after the query has been run you'll notice that the result-set from the has a new "duplicate" (3 and 6). If you were to run either of the working solutions again, they wouldn't detect this as a duplicate. Would you expect them to? Or is this desired behaviour?

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Post #1376447

praveen_vejandla

Posted Wednesday, October 24, 2012 10:10 PM

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Thanks every one for the prompt replies and sharing your thoughts.

id field given in the sample table is contiguous but in real data that I am working at, id field has gaps in between.

Also one issue with the answer that was provided by Thomas is:

sample data

id value name

1 10 test
2 5 prod
3 10 test
4 4 test
5 4 test
6 10 test

result

id value name

1 10 test
2 5 prod
3 10 test
6 10 test

It is removing all the records with value 4. Actually what is required is it should preserve the 1st value with min(id). It should not remove all the records.

Required result
-------------

id value name

1 10 test
2 5 prod
3 10 test
4 4 test
6 10 test

Post #1376761

BriPan

Posted Thursday, October 25, 2012 2:50 AM

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try this one

DECLARE @testtable TABLE (id INT, value INT, NAME CHAR(4));

INSERT INTO @testtable
VALUES
(1, 10, 'test'),
(2, 5, 'prod'),
(3, 10, 'test'),
(4, 4, 'test'),
(5, 4, 'test'),
(6, 4, 'test'),
(7, 10, 'test')

delete from @testtable where id in (
select t1.id
from
@testtable t
inner join @testtable t1 on t.id+1=t1.id and t.value=t1.value
)

select * from @testtable

Post #1376842

Want a cool Sig

Posted Thursday, October 25, 2012 7:29 AM

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This works for me. I've made a few assumptions as to the ID, value and name.
I've also modified the test data for assumption 1 and 2.

1. ID value is not always incremented by 1 there can be gaps.
2. Value does not always have the same name (i.e. 10 is not always "test")
3. We're looking for duplicates in Value and Test (i.e. composite unique key)
4. We keep the first instance of a duplicate and delete the subsequent ones.

DECLARE @testtable TABLE (id INT, value INT, NAME CHAR(4));

INSERT INTO @testtable
VALUES 
(1, 10, 'test'),  --Keep
(2, 5, 'prod'),  --Keep
(4, 10, 'test'), --Keep 
(6, 4, 'test'),  --Keep
(7, 4, 'test'),  --Drop
(9, 4, 'Job'),   --Keep (matching value but not name)
(11, 10, 'test'), --Keep
(13, 10, 'test') --Drop
;
with t1 as (
	select ROW_NUMBER()over(order by id) RowID
	,ID
	,Name
	,Value
	from @testtable
	)
	delete a
	from @testtable a
	where id in (
				select t1.id
				from t1 
				inner join t1 t2
				on t1.RowID = t2.RowID + 1
				and t1.value = t2.value
				and t1.NAME = t2.NAME
				)

select *
from @testtable

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Post #1376983

praveen_vejandla

Posted Thursday, October 25, 2012 9:42 AM

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Thanks a lot for the replies. Finally, I could get the required result with your help.

Post #1377091

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