Yeah ... it ain't purdy, and it sure doesn't scale so you have to be
careful where you use it.
This is usually more of a presentation issue that I'd suggest be left up
to the application doing the display of the data.
As an example, I believe Microsoft Excel has a crosstab function that
can query right from a database and do the 3D effect automagically.
If I wanted to do this regularly, I think I'd be inclined to write a job
that finds the number of columns (or rows) and then runs a separate
query for each of the respective rows (or columns). I was thinking
through an HTML example, where it's difficult to add columns to a table
on the fly, but having an "unknown" number of rows is no problem. I
think I'd query the db to find how many columns there are (and the
respective headings, in the example given, year numbers). Then, start a
loop querying for each product and their respective annual sales and
output each row.
Using this technique, you end up with a lot more queries back and forth
to the server, but as an application, it could automatically scale in
both width and height automatically.
-- Mitch
Chris wrote:
Mitch Miller wrote:
K.A.Bouton wrote:
> I need the output of my sql to be a multidimensional array as follows.
then Chris wrote:
> You won't be able to get an sql query to return in that format (I know
> what you're trying to do, I've used the same chart software).
This is my MSSQL Server solution, and yep, it outputs EXACTLY like
requested. I'm not sufficiently fluent with MySQL, so this may have
some "dialect" translation that needs done.
Also, this IS NOT a scalable solution at all. It assumes you know the
years you want the information for, and requires that you specify the
years in two specific areas of the query. Some SQL engines have a cross
tab function that will make this a little more automatic (MSSQL is one
such engine), but they are typically extensions to the SQL spec. and are
specific to each engine (i.e. the MSSQL implementation would not work
for MySQL).
I stand corrected :) mysql should support something like that but yeh
it's not a great solution (ie it's a horrible query) ;)
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