[Solved] MySQL: Select a Range of Ordered Records Based on a Separator Type

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MySQL: Select a Range of Ordered Records Based on a Separator Type

Database type:

I have a set of records, and I want to get the set of records between two records of the same type.

Consider this sample data:

ID   POSITION   TYPE
9    1          separator
7    2          one
8    3          three
5    4          one
2    5          separator
4    6          two
3    7          two
6    8          separator
1    9          four
11   10         five
10   11         three
12   12         five

I want to get the records from a specific separator to the next separator or the end of the record set.

Cases:

  1. Starting with record 2, I would expect to get records 4 and 3.
  2. Starting with record 6, I would expect to get records 1, 11, 10 and 12.

I can solve Case 1 with a sub-query, like this:

SELECT *
FROM table_name
WHERE position > 5
AND position < (
    SELECT MIN(position)
    FROM table_name
    WHERE position > 5
    AND type = 'separator'
)
ORDER BY position ASC

That solution will not work for Case 2, and it seems like there should be a way that doesn't use a sub-query.

SOLUTION

My solution is based on George's answer, and works, but I am concerned about it's potential lack of performance because of the coalesce function and sub-queries.

SELECT *
FROM table_name
WHERE `position` > 5
AND `position` < COALESCE(
    (SELECT MIN(`position`)
        FROM table_name
        WHERE `position` > 5
        AND `type` = 'separator'),
    (SELECT MAX(`position`) + 1
        FROM table_name))
ORDER BY `position` ASC

How to optimize this SQL query?

The following recommendations will help you in your SQL tuning process.
You'll find 3 sections below:

  1. Description of the steps you can take to speed up the query.
  2. The optimal indexes for this query, which you can copy and create in your database.
  3. An automatically re-written query you can copy and execute in your database.
The optimization process and recommendations:
  1. Avoid Selecting Unnecessary Columns (query line: 2): Avoid selecting all columns with the '*' wildcard, unless you intend to use them all. Selecting redundant columns may result in unnecessary performance degradation.
  2. Avoid Subqueries (query line: 8): We advise against using subqueries as they are not optimized well by the optimizer. Therefore, it's recommended to join a newly created temporary table that holds the data, which also includes the relevant search index.
  3. Create Optimal Indexes (modified query below): The recommended indexes are an integral part of this optimization effort and should be created before testing the execution duration of the optimized query.
Optimal indexes for this query:
ALTER TABLE `table_name` ADD INDEX `table_name_idx_position` (`position`);
ALTER TABLE `table_name` ADD INDEX `table_name_idx_type_position` (`type`,`position`);
The optimized query:
SELECT
        * 
    FROM
        table_name 
    WHERE
        table_name.position > 5 
        AND table_name.position < (
            SELECT
                MIN(table_name.position) 
            FROM
                table_name 
            WHERE
                table_name.position > 5 
                AND table_name.type = 'separator'
        ) 
    ORDER BY
        table_name.position ASC

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* original question posted on StackOverflow here.