I want to return all records that match criteria across three separate tables
and , in spite of reading up on joins, have so far been unable to design a
solution that doesn't require caching a hash table of intermediate results.
Here's the situation:
Let's say color names belong to a set of tones, each of which belong to a
palette. A palette can be comprised of multiple tones. Each tone can
contain multiple color names. i.e.:
palette palette1 tones red, green colors rose madder, crimson, red ochre, phthalocyanine, leaf green
palette palette2 tones blue colors cerulean
palette palette3 tones yellow colors chrome
Task: find all color names in each of palette1's tones.
Can this be done in a single SQL statement? Or does it require storing
the results of a select to find each of the tones that belong to palette1, then
separate selects on each resultant tone to yield the 5 color names?
Thanks in advance! Scott
p.s. Here's my test case sql:
CREATE TABLE palettes (palette_pkey SERIAL PRIMARY KEY, palette_name text UNIQUE DEFAULT NULL); INSERT INTO palettes (palette_name) VALUES ('plt1'); INSERT INTO palettes (palette_name) VALUES ('plt2'); INSERT INTO palettes (palette_name) VALUES ('plt3');
CREATE TABLE tones (tone_pkey SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
tone_name text UNIQUE DEFAULT NULL, palette_pkey integer REFERENCES palettes);
INSERT INTO tones (tone_name, palette_pkey) VALUES ('red', 1);
INSERT INTO tones (tone_name, palette_pkey) VALUES ('green', 1);
INSERT INTO tones (tone_name, palette_pkey) VALUES ('blue', 2);
INSERT INTO tones (tone_name, palette_pkey) VALUES ('yellow', 3);
CREATE TABLE colors (color_pkey SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
color_name text UNIQUE DEFAULT NULL, tone_pkey integer REFERENCES tones);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('rose madder', 1);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('crimson', 1);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('red ochre', 1);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('phthalocyanine', 2);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('leaf green', 2);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('cerulean', 3);
INSERT INTO colors (color_name, tone_pkey) VALUES ('chrome', 4);
# -1- [ cache results in a hash table for further processing ] SELECT * FROM tones WHERE palette_pkey = 1; # yields # tone_pkey | tone_name | palette_pkey # -----------+-----------+-------------- # 1 | red | 1 # 2 | green | 1
# -2- [ for each tone returned from step 1 ] SELECT * FROM colors WHERE tone_pkey = 1; # yields # color_pkey | color_name | tone_pkey # ------------+-------------+----------- # 1 | rose madder | 1 # 2 | crimson | 1 # 3 | red ochre | 1
SELECT * FROM colors WHERE tone_pkey = 2; # yields # color_pkey | color_name | tone_pkey # ------------+----------------+----------- # 4 | phthalocyanine | 2 # 5 | leaf | 2
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