Slide deck from my Subqueries For Superheroes webinar, presented for Dell Software as part of their Experts Perspective series.

1. Experts’ Perspective:
Subqueries for Superheroes
Tracy McKibben
DBA Supervisor, Pearson VUE

2. 2 Dell Software
Your host
• Richard Douglas
• Sales Engineer / SQL Evangelist
• Maidenhead SQL User Group Leader
• Blog: http://SQL.RichardDouglas.co.uk
• Twitter: @SQLRich
• Email:
Richard.Douglas@Software.Dell.com

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Tracy McKibben
DBA Supervisor, Senior SQL Server DBA
Pearson VUE
Blog: realsqlguy.com
Twitter: @RealSQLGuy
I’m not saying I’m Batman, I’m just saying that nobody has
ever seen me and Batman in the same room together...

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Today’s Lineup
• What is a subquery?
• Correlated vs non-correlated
• Occupational hazards
• Subqueries in disguise

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What is a subquery?
A query wrapped within, embedded
within, or otherwise referenced by
another query. Also known as an
INNER query.
The lowly sidekicks of the SQL
world.

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Anatomy of a subquery
Which of these is a valid place to put a subquery?
SELECT ?
FROM ?
INNER JOIN ?
ON ?
WHERE ?
GROUP BY ?
HAVING ?

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Anatomy of a subquery
SELECT <a subquery can go here>
FROM <or here>
INNER JOIN <or here>
ON <or here>
WHERE <or here>
GROUP BY <or here>
HAVING <or here>
It’s, like, the ultimate superpower!

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Is this a subquery?

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Exercise Time!

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Sometimes loopy
A subquery is either correlated or non-correlated.
What is the difference?

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Sometimes loopy
A subquery is either correlated or non-correlated.
What is the difference?
A correlated subquery depends on the
outer query, looping through the outer
resultset, executing once for each row
in the outer query.
A non-correlated subquery stands
alone, only running once, independent
of the values in the outer query.

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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What’s the correlation?
Does this subquery stand alone (non-correlated), or does it need help
(correlated)?

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Exercise Time!

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Occupational hazards
Subqueries offer a lot of power and flexibility.

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Occupational hazards
Subqueries offer a lot of power and flexibility.
But
sometimes,
things go
terribly
wrong

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COUNT vs EXISTS
Are there any Green Lantern
symbols in this collection?
How do you know?
Did you count them, or did
you simply see green and say
“yes”?
Did you do this:
WHERE COUNT() > 0?
or, did you do this:
WHERE EXISTS()?

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NOT IN vs NULL
Be careful of NULL values returned by inner query or value list in a
NOT IN clause. NULL has no value and can produce surprising results.
Always returns an empty resultset.

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MAX vs RANK
MAX/MIN are often used in a
subquery to determine the
oldest/greatest/most recent row in
the outer query.
RANK/OVER and other windowing
functions are more efficient. or

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Exercise Time!

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Subqueries In Disguise
Some T-SQL constructs behave much
like subqueries.
• non-indexed views
• common table expressions (CTE)
• user-defined functions
Be wary of performance problems.

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Exercise Time!

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The conclusion
• correlated vs non-correlated - know
the difference and potential impacts
• multiple ways to get the same data,
but not all perform well
• know new language features like
RANK
• don’t count unless you need a
number
• be wary of NULL values and hidden
subqueries

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Join us at these upcoming SQL events!
SQL Community Corner
Date Location
June 25
PASS DBA Virtual Chapter – “The Day After
Tomorrow; Why You Need to Baseline”
July 12 SQLSaturday #312 - Sacramento 2014
July 17-19 SQLBits XII – Telford, UK
July 26 SQLSaturday #302 – Albany 2014

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Visit our SQL Community on ToadWorld-
www.toadworld.com/platforms/sql-server/default.aspx

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Questions?
Continue the conversation on Twitter via #DellSQL

43. Thank You!