Question

Access Search Query - Union, Distinct, and Order By Priority

Asked by: Jahelka

Goal:  Have a single text box where user is allowed to enter single or multiple search terms (seperated by spaces) and run query to return "search results" showing best matches first.

I have a table containing several pieces of information related to a person, and I'll use these four fields as an example: first name, last name, social security number, tax id number.  I want the user to be able to search (with one box) for any of these terms, and return exact matches first, followed by near matches second.  I'm generating this sql in vb.net by parsing the search box, splitting the terms on spaces, and then dynamically creating an sql statement.  I've got it working pretty good, but I'm not quite there yet.

The code block that follows helps illustrate what I'm trying to do (one term search of "Rob" in this example).  This query matches all Persons who's first name or last name IS just "Rob" and places those as a priority (=1), but it also selects all Persons who's first name STARTS WITH "Rob" and gives those a priority of 2.  So everything is great here, but now I get TWO records for both types of match (exact, and first letters).  I want to eliminate the duplicate matches, but still have the priority in the sort order.

I tried making this part of a sub query, as in the second example.  But Access doesn't like the combination of the DISTINCT along with the ORDER BY and a term that isn't included in the SELECT DISTINCT.  How do I get around this, or is there a better way to accomplish what I'm trying to do (I sure would like it to be all one query and not have to manually create a data table or temporary table to hold this information).

' Example #1
 
SELECT * FROM (
SELECT 1 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People 
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob'
UNION ALL 
SELECT 2 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
) ORDER BY Priority, LastName, FirstName
 
' Example #2
 
SELECT DISTINCT FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM (
SELECT 1 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People 
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob'
UNION ALL 
SELECT 2 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
) ORDER BY Priority, LastName, FirstName
 

                                  
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Asked On
2009-11-02 at 17:51:21ID24865908
Tags

access sql select union distinct order by priority

Topics

SQL Query Syntax

,

Data Mining

Participating Experts
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Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: dqmqPosted on 2009-11-02 at 19:48:40ID: 25725905

Use UNION instead of UNION ALL and the duplicates will be dropped.

SELECT 1 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob'
UNION
SELECT 2 as Priority, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
ORDER BY Priority, LastName, FirstName

 

by: JahelkaPosted on 2009-11-02 at 20:14:58ID: 25726005

That doesn't get me anywhere...  The first query in the union will ALWAYS return a column with Priority=1, and the second query in the union will ALWAYS return a column with Priority=2, so they aren't duplicate rows.  What I was trying to accomplish in the second query example was to perform the DISTINCT on the only the fields that I needed (without the Priority column, so they COULD be identified as duplicates), but still get the sort order right, and that is a no-go.

 

by: dqmqPosted on 2009-11-02 at 21:45:43ID: 25726318

OK.  Something like this perhaps:


SELECT IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2) as Priority
, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob' OR FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
ORDER BY Priority, LastName, FirstName

 

by: JahelkaPosted on 2009-11-02 at 22:44:47ID: 25726527

Wow, that is sneaky!  Thanks for the great tip!

Worked as suggested, with one exception...  Access (2000) didn't like using an alias in this case, so you have to include the exact wording for the IIF statement in the ORDER BY clause as well.  Like this:

SELECT IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2), FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID 
FROM People 
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob' OR FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
ORDER BY IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2), LastName, FirstName
                                              
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by: dqmqPosted on 2009-11-03 at 08:33:18ID: 25730690

Got it.  Or this variation perhaps:

Select FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID from
(
SELECT IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2) as Priority
, FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID FROM People
WHERE FirstName='Rob' OR LastName='Rob' OR SSN='Rob' OR TID='Rob' OR FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
) as x
ORDER BY Priority, LastName, FirstName

 

by: JahelkaPosted on 2009-11-03 at 08:38:06ID: 25730742

Ahh, yes.  That should be faster (I'm guessing) because the IIF expression doesn't have to be evaluated twice.  I should also mention one other thing.  In the WHERE clause, you don't need to check for exact matches anymore, just use the LIKE comparisons.  Having the exact match criteria in there is actually redundant!  So you can do it as follows and it works the same.  Thanks for the great tip!  Don't know when I'll use that again, but I'll have to keep it in mind!

SELECT IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2), FirstName, LastName, SSN, TID 
FROM People 
WHERE FirstName LIKE 'Rob%' OR LastName LIKE 'Rob%' OR SSN LIKE 'Rob%' OR TID LIKE 'Rob%'
ORDER BY IIF('Rob' in (FirstName,LastName,SSN,TID),1,2), LastName, FirstName

                                              
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