Thread

Re: [BUGS] General Bug Report: GROUP BY with NULL not done properly(Oracle8 & DB/2 do this completely different)

Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> — 1999-07-07T18:10:03Z

Looks like this is fixed in 6.5.

	test=> SELECT a,sum(b) FROM z GROUP BY a;
	a|sum
	-+---
	1|  6
	 |  4
	(2 rows)


> 
> ============================================================================
>                         POSTGRESQL BUG REPORT TEMPLATE
> ============================================================================
> 
> 
> Your name               : 
> Your email address      : secret@kearneydev.com
> 
> Category                : runtime: back-end: SQL
> Severity                : non-critical
> 
> Summary: GROUP BY with NULL not done properly(Oracle8 & DB/2 do this completely different)
> 
> System Configuration
> --------------------
>   Operating System   : Linux 2.2.7 Redhat 5.2
> 
>   PostgreSQL version : 6.4.2
> 
>   Compiler used      : 2.7.2.3
> 
> Hardware:
> ---------
> Linux tau.kearneydev.com 2.2.7 #3 Thu Apr 29 10:10:41 EDT 1999 i686 unknown
> 
> Versions of other tools:
> ------------------------
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem Description:
> --------------------
> The appearance of NULL in a table where a GROUP BY clause is
> used causes the behavior of returning 1 line for every NULL.
> Both Oracle8 and DB/2 perform this as I would expect. IE
> a,b
> 1,1
> 1,2
> NULL,1
> NULL,2
> 
> SELECT a,sum(b) GROUP BY a returns on Postgres:
> 1,3
> NULL,1
> NULL,2
> 
> On Oracle8, DB/2, etc.:
> 1,3
> NULL,3
> 
> Cut&paste from Oracle8:
> SQL> select * from z;
> 
>         A         B
> --------- ---------
>         1         1
>         1         2
>                   5
>                  10
> 
> SQL> select a,sum(b) from z group by a;
> 
>         A    SUM(B)
> --------- ---------
>         1         3
>                  15
> 
> SQL> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Test Case:
> ----------
> CREATE TABLE z(a int4,b int4);
> INSERT INTO z values (1,2);
> INSERT INTO z VALUES (1,1);
> INSERT INTO z(b) VALUES (1);
> INSERT INTO z(b) VALUES (2);
> SELECT a,sum(b) FROM z GROUP BY a;
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Solution:
> ---------
> For whatever reason I've observed many times that NULL<>NULL
> under PostgreSQL, I've had to include many clauses in my
> SQL statements to make up for this, perhaps if this was
> corrected it would function properly.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 


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