GROUP BY clause

The GROUP BY clause arranges aggregate values into groups, based on one more fields.

(Introduced in Couchbase Server 4.0)

Purpose

Use the GROUP BY clause to arrange aggregate values into groups of one or more fields. This GROUP BY clause follows the WHERE clause and precedes the optional LETTING, HAVING, and ORDER BY clauses.

Syntax

GROUP BY expr [, expr2 ]*
  [ LETTING alias = expr [, alias2 = expr2 ]* ]
  [ HAVING cond ]
|
LETTING alias = expr [, alias2 = expr2 ]*

Arguments

expr

[At least one is required] String or expression representing the aggregate function or fields to group together.

LETTING letting-clause

[Optional] Stores the result of a sub-expression in order to use it in subsequent clauses. letting clause

alias: String or expression representing the name of the clause to be referred to.
expr: String or expression representing the value of the LETTING alias variable.

HAVING having-clause

[Optional] To return items where aggregate values meet the specified conditions. having clause

cond: String or expression representing the clause of aggregate values.

Limitations

GROUP BY works only on a group key or aggregate function.

Examples

Example 1: Group the unique landmarks by city and list the top 4 cities with the most landmarks in descending order.

SELECT city City, COUNT(DISTINCT name) LandmarkCount
FROM `travel-sample`
WHERE type = "landmark"
GROUP BY city
ORDER BY LandmarkCount DESC
LIMIT 4;

Results:

[
  {
    "City": "San Francisco",
    "LandmarkCount": 797
  },
  {
    "City": "London",
    "LandmarkCount": 443
  },
  {
    "City": "Los Angeles",
    "LandmarkCount": 284
  },
  {
    "City": "San Diego",
    "LandmarkCount": 197
  }
]

Example 2: Use LETTING to find cities that have a minimum number of things to see.

SELECT city City, COUNT(DISTINCT name) LandmarkCount
FROM `travel-sample`
WHERE type = "landmark"
GROUP BY city
LETTING MinimumThingsToSee = 400
HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT name) > MinimumThingsToSee;

Results:

[
  {
    "City": "London",
    "LandmarkCount": 443
  },
  {
    "City": "San Francisco",
    "LandmarkCount": 797
  }
]

Example 3: Use HAVING to specify cities that have more than 180 landmarks.

SELECT city City, COUNT(DISTINCT name) LandmarkCount
FROM `travel-sample`
WHERE type = "landmark"
GROUP BY city
HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT name) > 180;

Results:

[
  {
    "City": "London",
    "LandmarkCount": 443
  },
  {
    "City": "Los Angeles",
    "LandmarkCount": 284
  },
  {
    "City": "San Francisco",
    "LandmarkCount": 797
  },
  {
    "City": "San Diego",
    "LandmarkCount": 197
  }
]

The above HAVING clause must use the aggregate function COUNT instead of its alias LandmarkCount.

Example 4: Use HAVING to specify landmarks that begin with an "S" or higher.

SELECT city City, COUNT(DISTINCT name) LandmarkCount
FROM `travel-sample`
WHERE type = "landmark"
GROUP BY city
HAVING city > "S";

138 Results in 150ms:

[
  {
    "City": "Santa Barbara",
    "LandmarkCount": 53
  },
  {
    "City": "San Francisco",
    "LandmarkCount": 797
  },
  {
    "City": "Stable Yd",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
  {
    "City": "Wembley",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
...

Example 4b: Using WHERE yields the same results as HAVING, however, WHERE is faster.

SELECT city City, COUNT(DISTINCT name) LandmarkCount
FROM `travel-sample`
WHERE type = "landmark"
AND city > "S"
GROUP BY city

138 Results in 94ms:

[
  {
    "City": "San Luis Obispo",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
  {
    "City": "Twentynine Palms",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
  {
    "City": "Westlake Village",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
  {
    "City": "Surrey",
    "LandmarkCount": 1
  },
...

The WHERE clause is faster because WHERE gets processed before any GROUP BY and doesn’t have access to aggregated values. HAVING gets processed after GROUP BY and is used to constrain the resultset to only those with aggregated values.