SQL syntax

Thank guys.  To answer some questions... yes a typo with the date... that did not help!  And I did remove a couple of the columns in the select statement which would have made the join with Countries table...

However as PortletPaul pointed out i needed to move the where clause to the join statement.

Paul,

By Join condition, are you referring to a HAVING clause?

If I wanted all the Units, and only wanted to count those Measurement records within in that date range, I would normally create a nested subquery to limit the dbo.Measurements result set, prior to the join.

This is what i ended up with:

SELECT
  pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.id, 
  max(pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.Name) as kli_Namn, 
  max(pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.Id) as kli_KlinikNr,
  max(pharosBPSD.dbo.Counties.Code) as kli_Lanskod,
  max(pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.PostTown) as kli_PostOrt,
  max(pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.PostCode) as kli_PostNr,
  min( msr_date ) as FörstaSkattning,
  MAX( msr_date ) as SistaSkattning,
  count( msr_date ) as AntalSkattning,
  count( distinct( pat_id) ) as AntalPatienter
FROM pharosBPSD.dbo.Units  
LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.Measurements ON  pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.id = dbo.Measurements.kli_Kliniknr and ((msr_Date >= @startdate) and (msr_Date <= @enddate))
inner join pharosBPSD.dbo.Counties ON pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.CountyId = pharosBPSD.dbo.Counties.id 
group by 
  pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.id

Select allOpen in new window

@fyed, a subquery would be a good alternative (I use nested subqueries frequently). Here simply moving the date range filter to a join condition seemed appropriate to me.
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Regarding the date range condition/filter now in use:

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.Measurements
                       ON  pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.id = dbo.Measurements.kli_Kliniknr
                    AND ( msr_Date >= @startdate and msr_Date <= @enddate )

I would like reinforce a point made by fyed earlier, that using less than or equal to in the date range filter may be incorrect.

For the dates of '2012-01-01' and  '2012-06-01'  I would treat this as meaning:
I want everything in the 5 months: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May
(and nothing from June and beyond)

In which case you would remove the or equal to after the less than.

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.Measurements
                       ON  pharosBPSD.dbo.Units.id = dbo.Measurements.kli_Kliniknr
                    AND ( msr_Date >= @startdate and msr_Date < @enddate )

Right now you are using the direct equivalent to 'between' which I don't recommend for date ranges. I attempt an explanation for this in: "Beware of Between"

Paul,

I've never seen that syntax in a JOIN before, and certainly never tried it in Access.  Is that syntax exclusive to SQL Server?

>> Is that syntax exclusive to SQL Server?
no, available in most that I'm familiar with, certainly Oracle, MySQL, Postgres
probably Sybase, I'd expect it for DB2
might not work in 'small footprint' db's like SQLite (but could be tested at sqlfiddle)

I don't know if it would work in Access, it might, but would probably need a dozen or so redundant parentheses :)
- just kidding, but Access does love parentheses

Now I understand why you didn't propose it yourself. It was a very thorough response with just that bit missing :)

Paul,

I totally agree with the parentheses statement!

Have not done much of anything with SQL Server since 2003.  My clients/employers have not wanted to bother with it.  Think it has more to do with not wanting to have to maintain and monitor (dba) it, even the Express edition.