Example of GROUP BY and COLLECT Operator

Example: Using GROUP BY and COLLECT to obtain C_ER2

SELECT CourseId,

CAST (

COLLECT (ROW (StudentId, Mark))

AS ROW (StudentId SID, Mark INTEGER) MULTISET)

AS ExamResult

FROM EXAM_MARK

GROUP BY CourseId

Explanation

• ROW (StudentId, Mark) forms the row consisting of the StudentId and Mark values of the current row of EXAM_MARK, in that order. The two fields of this row are unnamed.
• COLLECT (ROW(StudentId, Mark)) collects together as a multiset all of those rows that are derived EXAM_MARK rows having the same CourseId value. In fact it is shorthand for FUSION (ROW (StudentId, Mark) MULTISET), where FUSION is SQL's nearest counterpart of aggregate UNION. For each value of its operand, COLLECT derives the multiset containing just that value, and returns the FUSION (see next bullet) of all the multisets thus formed.
• FUSION is aggregate multiset union (UNION ALL), not UNION per se. In general the same value (in our example, a row) might appear more than once in the result of a COLLECT invocation. Fortunately, that won't happen here because the same StudentId, Mark combination cannot appear along with the same CourseId in more than one row of EXAM_ MARK, so DISTINCT could be omitted.
• CAST (m AS ROW (StudentId SID, Mark INTEGER) MULTISET), where m is the above COLLECT expression, names the columns of the nested table, ExamResult. Note the need to spell out the entire declared type of ExamResult, even though it differs from that of the COLLECT expression only in the names of the two columns.