CSE 414: Section 3

(Un)Nesting Queries

October 15th, 2026

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Administrivia

• HW2 due Monday October 19th at 11:59pm
• HW1 grades out over the weekend

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Where we started

FWS

(From, Where, Select)

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And now...

FWGHOS^TM

(From, Where, Group By, Having, Order By, Select)

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Group By

• Powerful tool to handle “categories”
• Groups rows with the same value of an attribute into a “bucket” (think dividing into categories)
• Careful when selecting
• Only select attributes in GROUP BY or aggregates
• SQLite will guess (arbitrarily pick a value)¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• SQL Server will throw an error ง •̀_•́)ง

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Group By - Examples

Do these queries work?

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Enrolled(stu_id, course_num)

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SELECT stu_id, course_num

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

SELECT stu_id, count(course_num)

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

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Group By - Examples

Do these queries work?

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Enrolled(stu_id, course_num)

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SELECT stu_id, course_num

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

SELECT stu_id, count(course_num)

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

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Group By - Examples

Do these queries work?

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Enrolled(stu_id, course_num)

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SELECT stu_id, course_num

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

SELECT stu_id, count(course_num)

FROM Enrolled

GROUP BY stu_id

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Grouping and Ordering

GROUP BY [attribute], …, [attribute_n]

HAVING [predicate] - operates on groups, chooses to keep or remove the entire group

ORDER BY [attribute] [ASC/DESC]

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RECAP: THE WITNESSING PROBLEM

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WHY SUBQUERIES?

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Difference?

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Nested Queries

• Avoid when possible
• Danger of making simple queries slow and complicated
• Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should

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Subquery in SELECT

SELECT C.cname, (SELECT count(*)

FROM Product P

WHERE P.cid=C.cid)

FROM Company C

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Subquery in SELECT

Unnest using JOIN and GROUP BY

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SELECT C.cname, count(P.cid)

FROM Company C LEFT OUTER JOIN

Product P ON C.cid = P.cid

GROUP BY C.cid, C.cname;

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Subquery in FROM

SELECT X.pname � FROM (SELECT *

FROM Product

WHERE price > 20) AS X

WHERE X.price < 500

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More readable: WITH <name> AS (<subquery>)

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Subquery in FROM

Unnest using WHERE

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SELECT X.pname � FROM Product AS X

WHERE X.price < 500 AND X.price > 20;

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Subquery in WHERE

SELECT DISTINCT C.cname

FROM Company C

WHERE EXISTS (SELECT *� FROM Product P� WHERE C.cid = P.cid AND P.price < 200)

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Subquery in WHERE

SELECT DISTINCT C.cname

FROM Company C, Product P

WHERE C.cid = P.cid AND P.price < 200

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Subquery in WHERE Syntax

• SELECT ……… WHERE EXISTS (<sub>);
• SELECT ……… WHERE NOT EXISTS (<sub>);
• SELECT ……… WHERE attribute IN (<sub>);
• SELECT ……… WHERE attribute NOT IN (<sub>);
• SELECT ……… WHERE attribute > ANY (<sub>);
• SELECT ……… WHERE attribute > ALL (<sub>);

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To Nest or Not to Nest

• Not an exact science
• Figuring out what is actually wanted will help you find simpler solutions (best way is to practice)
• Trigger words to use sub-querying
• Every, All (universal quantifiers)
• No, None, Never (negation)
• Only

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Monotonicity

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Monotonicity

Definition: A query Q is monotone if whenever we add tuples to one or more input tables, the answer to the query will not lose any output tuples

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Theorem: If Q is a SELECT-FROM-WHERE query that does not have subqueries or aggregates, then it is monotone

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(Non-)monotonic Queries

• “Can we take back outputs by looking at more data?”
• Is this a monotonic query?

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SELECT count(*)

FROM T1

GROUP BY T1.attr

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(Non-)monotonic Queries

• “Can we take back outputs by looking at more data?”
• Is this a monotonic query?

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SELECT count(*)

FROM T1

GROUP BY T1.attr

No! This query does not satisfy set containment.

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Ex:

Current output: {(6), (23), (10)}

After more data: {(6), (23), (11)}

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{(6), (23), (10)} ⊄ {(6), (23), (11)}

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(Non-)monotonic Queries

• “Can we take back outputs by looking at more data?”
• Is this a monotonic query?

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SELECT count(*)

FROM T1

GROUP BY T1.attr

No! This query does not satisfy set containment.

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Ex:

Current output: {(6), (23), (10)}

After more data: {(6), (23), (11)}

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{(6), (23), (10)} ⊄ {(6), (23), (11)}

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Aggregates are generally sensitive to new tuples

Consequences of Monotonicity

Theorem: If a query is monotonic, it implies that a nested query can actually be unnested.

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(AGAIN) Witnessing (i.e. argmax)

Find the student who is taking the most classes.

Student(stu_id, id_num)

Enrolled(id_num, class)

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SELECT S.stu_id

FROM Student S, Enrolled E

WHERE S.id_num = E.id_num

GROUP BY S.stu_id

HAVING count(E.class) >= ALL(

SELECT count(E1.class)

FROM Enrolled E1

GROUP BY E1.id_num);

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Witnessing (i.e. argmax)

Find the student who is taking the most classes.

Student(stu_id, id_num)

Enrolled(id_num, class)

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SELECT S.stu_id

FROM Student S, Enrolled E

WHERE S.id_num = E.id_num

GROUP BY S.stu_id

HAVING COUNT(E.class) = (

SELECT MAX(C) FROM (

SELECT COUNT(E1.class) AS C

FROM Enrolled E1

GROUP BY E1.id_num));

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Alternative to “ALL”