SQL

Lukas Hager

2025-07-18

Learning Objectives

  • Be able to use python to connect to a database
  • Understand the basics of SQL syntax and how to query data

SQL Background

Pronounciation1

“Sequel”, not “Ess-Queue-Ell”

Background

  • Structured Query Language
  • Used to extract data from relational databases
  • Core concepts:
    • Record (table row)
    • Table column
    • Table – collection of rows and columns

Tables

  • Any table operation produces another table as a result
  • A record is a collection of key-value pairs
    • Think of this like a row in an excel spreadsheet
    • “Name”: “John”, “Salary”: 50, …
  • A table is a collection of records
    • “Name”: “John”, “Salary”: 50, …,
    • “Name”: “Mary”, “Salary”: 55, …
  • pandas treats tables as DataFrames

SQL in Pipelines

  • Most large companies and research groups store data in relational databases
  • The first step of any project is to define the data you need and query it from SQL
  • Once you have the data, you can clean and model using pandas etc.
  • This first querying step is key!

Why?

Why should you use databases instead of CSVs?

Answer (per Luke1 Wylie2)

  1. Databases are tools built specifically for using and sharing data in a matched “state” - as soon as someone else needs to use your data at the same time as you, and even keeping track of changes and mutations to the transaction, a CSV is useless.
  2. As soon as you start mutating data and creating multiple datasets while refusing to use a database, you resign yourself to the special hell that is juggling multiple CSVs. You will inevitably lose data.

Accessing a Database in Python

sqlalchemy

  • There are lots of ways to connect to a database
    • Hopefully the group that you’re working with already has an in-house solution
  • We’ll work with a very simple version (no authentication, etc.)
  • Connecting to a sqlite database using sqlalchemy

create_engine

  • We have a .db file called auctions.db that contains data on bidding for 500 North Face clothing items on ShopGoodwill.com1
  • To connect to it, we have to create a sqlalchemy engine:
import sqlalchemy
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

path = '/Users/lghhager/git/quarto_site/teaching/econ-481/data/auctions.db'
engine = create_engine(f'sqlite:///{path}')

create_engine Argument

  • Note that at the beginning, we tell sqlalchemy what sort of database we’re connecting to
  • We then pass three / characters before the database location.

Listing Tables

  • Databases contain multiple tables
  • We want to know what they are
from sqlalchemy import inspect

inspector = inspect(engine)
inspector.get_table_names()
['bids', 'items']

So we have two tables, named “bids” and “items”

Querying Data

  • We’ll begin by working with SQL in a “traditional” sense, where we just write queries instead of leveraging the python package
    • Libraries like sqlalchemy or pyspark have methods to take the place of querying
    • These are a little easier to learn once we get the basics of writing a query
  • Query: a letter to the database telling it what we want

Writing a Query Class

To assess the output of our queries, we’re going to write a class that will run our query against the database and return a DataFrame as the table output.

import pandas as pd
from sqlalchemy.orm import Session

class DataBase:
    def __init__(self, loc: str, db_type: str = "sqlite") -> None:
        """Initialize the class and connect to the database"""
        self.loc = loc
        self.db_type = db_type
        self.engine = create_engine(f'{self.db_type}:///{self.loc}')
    def query(self, q: str) -> pd.DataFrame:
        """Run a query against the database and return a DataFrame"""
        with Session(self.engine) as session:
            df = pd.read_sql(q, session.bind)
        return(df)

auctions = DataBase(path)

Aside: Why a Class?

  • Why is a class better than a function here?
  • A function would either require us to pass the engine as an argument or reference a global variable (not good)
  • In the class, all of our queries will share the same engine
  • Logical flow – we create run queries against only one database at a time

Queries

Query Syntax

  • SELECT comma-separated list of columns
  • FROM Table1 JOIN Table2 … JOIN TableN
  • WHERE Condition1 AND … AND ConditionM
  • GROUP BY comma-separated list of grouping columns
  • [HAVING] Condition1 AND … AND ConditionK
  • [ORDER BY] comma-separated list of sorting cols
  • [LIMIT] number of rows to return

SELECT * Statement1

q = 'select * from bids'
print(auctions.query(q).head())
   index  bidLogId     itemId  itemPrice  bidAmount  \
0     50         0  178348858       9.99       20.0   
1     51         0  178348858      13.00       12.0   
2     52         0  178348858      21.00       23.0   
3     53         0  178348858      24.00       35.0   
4     54         0  178348858      36.00       48.0   

                      bidTime  quantity bidIPAddress adCode serverIP  \
0  2023-09-18 16:11:04.587000         1         None   None     None   
1  2023-09-22 14:22:06.700000         1         None   None     None   
2  2023-09-23 12:35:18.157000         1         None   None     None   
3  2023-09-23 18:23:27.993000         1         None   None     None   
4  2023-09-23 18:37:47.213000         1         None   None     None   

   retracted bidderName highBidderName  isBuyerHighBidder  isLoggedInBuyer  
0          0     a****9         a****9                  0                0  
1          0     S****p         a****9                  0                0  
2          0     H****2         H****2                  0                0  
3          0     b****e         b****e                  0                0  
4          0     t****5         t****5                  0                0

SELECT Columns Statement

q = 'select itemid, description, isbuynowused from items'
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId                                        description  isBuyNowUsed
0  179353985  <p><strong>Description:</strong></p>\n<p>Women...             0
1  177087535  <p><strong>Details &amp; Condition</strong></p...             0
2  180876361  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...             0
3  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...             0
4  179660197  <p><b>Title: </b>The North Face Mens Red Flat ...             0

JOIN Statements

Recall our discussion on joining in pandas – these are SQL-style joins, and SQL has the same types.

q = """
select items.itemid, items.description, bids.biddername, bids.bidamount, bids.bidtime 
from items
left join bids
on items.itemid = bids.itemid
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId                                        description bidderName  \
0  179353985  <p><strong>Description:</strong></p>\n<p>Women...       None   
1  177087535  <p><strong>Details &amp; Condition</strong></p...       None   
2  180876361  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...     B****4   
3  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     n****m   
4  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     N****0   

   bidAmount                     bidTime  
0        NaN                        None  
1        NaN                        None  
2      19.99  2023-10-18 05:54:55.327000  
3      10.00  2023-09-17 11:52:27.447000  
4      14.00  2023-09-17 17:33:48.517000

JOIN Aliases

Should this run?

q = """
select itemid, description, biddername, bidamount, bidtime 
from items
left join bids
on items.itemid = bids.itemid
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: ambiguous column name: itemid

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[7], line 7
      1 q = """
      2 select itemid, description, biddername, bidamount, bidtime 
      3 from items
      4 left join bids
      5 on items.itemid = bids.itemid
      6 """
----> 7 print(auctions.query(q).head())

Cell In[3], line 13, in DataBase.query(self, q)
     11 """Run a query against the database and return a DataFrame"""
     12 with Session(self.engine) as session:
---> 13     df = pd.read_sql(q, session.bind)
     14 return(df)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:734, in read_sql(sql, con, index_col, coerce_float, params, parse_dates, columns, chunksize, dtype_backend, dtype)
    724     return pandas_sql.read_table(
    725         sql,
    726         index_col=index_col,
   (...)    731         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    732     )
    733 else:
--> 734     return pandas_sql.read_query(
    735         sql,
    736         index_col=index_col,
    737         params=params,
    738         coerce_float=coerce_float,
    739         parse_dates=parse_dates,
    740         chunksize=chunksize,
    741         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    742         dtype=dtype,
    743     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1836, in SQLDatabase.read_query(self, sql, index_col, coerce_float, parse_dates, params, chunksize, dtype, dtype_backend)
   1779 def read_query(
   1780     self,
   1781     sql: str,
   (...)   1788     dtype_backend: DtypeBackend | Literal["numpy"] = "numpy",
   1789 ) -> DataFrame | Iterator[DataFrame]:
   1790     """
   1791     Read SQL query into a DataFrame.
   1792 
   (...)   1834 
   1835     """
-> 1836     result = self.execute(sql, params)
   1837     columns = result.keys()
   1839     if chunksize is not None:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1659, in SQLDatabase.execute(self, sql, params)
   1657 args = [] if params is None else [params]
   1658 if isinstance(sql, str):
-> 1659     return self.con.exec_driver_sql(sql, *args)
   1660 return self.con.execute(sql, *args)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1775, in Connection.exec_driver_sql(self, statement, parameters, execution_options)
   1770 execution_options = self._execution_options.merge_with(
   1771     execution_options
   1772 )
   1774 dialect = self.dialect
-> 1775 ret = self._execute_context(
   1776     dialect,
   1777     dialect.execution_ctx_cls._init_statement,
   1778     statement,
   1779     None,
   1780     execution_options,
   1781     statement,
   1782     distilled_parameters,
   1783 )
   1785 return ret

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1842, in Connection._execute_context(self, dialect, constructor, statement, parameters, execution_options, *args, **kw)
   1840     return self._exec_insertmany_context(dialect, context)
   1841 else:
-> 1842     return self._exec_single_context(
   1843         dialect, context, statement, parameters
   1844     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1982, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1979     result = context._setup_result_proxy()
   1981 except BaseException as e:
-> 1982     self._handle_dbapi_exception(
   1983         e, str_statement, effective_parameters, cursor, context
   1984     )
   1986 return result

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:2351, in Connection._handle_dbapi_exception(self, e, statement, parameters, cursor, context, is_sub_exec)
   2349 elif should_wrap:
   2350     assert sqlalchemy_exception is not None
-> 2351     raise sqlalchemy_exception.with_traceback(exc_info[2]) from e
   2352 else:
   2353     assert exc_info[1] is not None

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1961                 break
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:
   1968     self.dispatch.after_cursor_execute(
   1969         self,
   1970         cursor,
   (...)   1974         context.executemany,
   1975     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: (sqlite3.OperationalError) ambiguous column name: itemid
[SQL: 
select itemid, description, biddername, bidamount, bidtime 
from items
left join bids
on items.itemid = bids.itemid
]
(Background on this error at: https://sqlalche.me/e/20/e3q8)

JOIN Renaming Tables

It’s often convenient to rename tables in joins to make your query less verbose (potentially at the cost of readability)

q = """
select i.itemid, i.description, b.biddername, b.bidamount, b.bidtime 
from items as i
left join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId                                        description bidderName  \
0  179353985  <p><strong>Description:</strong></p>\n<p>Women...       None   
1  177087535  <p><strong>Details &amp; Condition</strong></p...       None   
2  180876361  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...     B****4   
3  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     n****m   
4  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     N****0   

   bidAmount                     bidTime  
0        NaN                        None  
1        NaN                        None  
2      19.99  2023-10-18 05:54:55.327000  
3      10.00  2023-09-17 11:52:27.447000  
4      14.00  2023-09-17 17:33:48.517000

Exercise: Joins

For each of the join types supported in sqlite (left, inner, cross), perform the join on the two tables and report the number of observations in the resulting join.

Solutions: Joins

join_types = ['inner', 'left', 'cross']
queries = [
    f"""select count(*) as n
    from items as i
    {join} join bids as b
    on i.itemid = b.itemid""" for join in join_types
]
[auctions.query(q)['n'].item() for q in queries]
[551, 879, 551]

WHERE

q = """
select i.itemid, i.description, b.biddername, b.bidamount, b.bidtime 
from items as i
left join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
where b.bidamount is not null
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId                                        description bidderName  \
0  178348858  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     a****9   
1  178348858  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     S****p   
2  178348858  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     H****2   
3  178348858  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     b****e   
4  178348858  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     t****5   

   bidAmount                     bidTime  
0       20.0  2023-09-18 16:11:04.587000  
1       12.0  2023-09-22 14:22:06.700000  
2       23.0  2023-09-23 12:35:18.157000  
3       35.0  2023-09-23 18:23:27.993000  
4       48.0  2023-09-23 18:37:47.213000

WHERE With Multiple Conditions

q = """
select i.itemid, i.description, b.biddername, b.bidamount, b.bidtime
from items as i
left join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
where b.bidamount is not null and i.isbuynowused is false
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId                                        description bidderName  \
0  180876361  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...     B****4   
1  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     n****m   
2  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     N****0   
3  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     M****y   
4  177763109  <p><br></p><ul><li><span class="ql-size-large"...     M****y   

   bidAmount                     bidTime  
0      19.99  2023-10-18 05:54:55.327000  
1      10.00  2023-09-17 11:52:27.447000  
2      14.00  2023-09-17 17:33:48.517000  
3      15.00  2023-09-17 18:27:00.087000  
4      15.00  2023-09-17 18:33:37.233000

GROUP BY

The same as .groupby() in pandas – add aggregating functions to the SELECT clause

q = """
select i.itemid, count(distinct b.biddername) as n_bidders
from items as i
left join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
where b.bidamount is not null and i.isbuynowused is false
group by i.itemid
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  n_bidders
0  165561698          1
1  170983900          1
2  172998011          2
3  173907435          1
4  174445924          3

Aside: COUNT

We can also just count observations without a grouping:

q = """
select count(*) from items
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
   count(*)
0       500

Or count the distinct number of something without a grouping:

q = """
select count(distinct biddername) from bids
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
   count(distinct biddername)
0                         284

Exercise: MIN and MAX

In SQL, MIN and MAX are aggregating functions that work the same way as COUNT. Use them to create a table of the number of bids each bidder submitted for each item, as well as their largest and smallest bid.

Exercise: MIN and MAX

q = """
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId bidderName  n_bids  min_bid  max_bid
0  165561698     n****4       1     9.91     9.91
1  170983900     c****3       1     9.91     9.91
2  172998011     A****e       1     9.91     9.91
3  172998011     J****m       1     9.91     9.91
4  173907435     M****n       1    14.99    14.99

Filter on Aggregate Function Value

What if we only care about bid distribution for a bidder when their largest bid is more than $20?

q = """
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
where max_bid > 20
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: near "where": syntax error

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[16], line 8
      1 q = """
      2 select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
      3 max(bidamount) as max_bid
   (...)      6 where max_bid > 20
      7 """
----> 8 print(auctions.query(q).head())

Cell In[3], line 13, in DataBase.query(self, q)
     11 """Run a query against the database and return a DataFrame"""
     12 with Session(self.engine) as session:
---> 13     df = pd.read_sql(q, session.bind)
     14 return(df)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:734, in read_sql(sql, con, index_col, coerce_float, params, parse_dates, columns, chunksize, dtype_backend, dtype)
    724     return pandas_sql.read_table(
    725         sql,
    726         index_col=index_col,
   (...)    731         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    732     )
    733 else:
--> 734     return pandas_sql.read_query(
    735         sql,
    736         index_col=index_col,
    737         params=params,
    738         coerce_float=coerce_float,
    739         parse_dates=parse_dates,
    740         chunksize=chunksize,
    741         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    742         dtype=dtype,
    743     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1836, in SQLDatabase.read_query(self, sql, index_col, coerce_float, parse_dates, params, chunksize, dtype, dtype_backend)
   1779 def read_query(
   1780     self,
   1781     sql: str,
   (...)   1788     dtype_backend: DtypeBackend | Literal["numpy"] = "numpy",
   1789 ) -> DataFrame | Iterator[DataFrame]:
   1790     """
   1791     Read SQL query into a DataFrame.
   1792 
   (...)   1834 
   1835     """
-> 1836     result = self.execute(sql, params)
   1837     columns = result.keys()
   1839     if chunksize is not None:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1659, in SQLDatabase.execute(self, sql, params)
   1657 args = [] if params is None else [params]
   1658 if isinstance(sql, str):
-> 1659     return self.con.exec_driver_sql(sql, *args)
   1660 return self.con.execute(sql, *args)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1775, in Connection.exec_driver_sql(self, statement, parameters, execution_options)
   1770 execution_options = self._execution_options.merge_with(
   1771     execution_options
   1772 )
   1774 dialect = self.dialect
-> 1775 ret = self._execute_context(
   1776     dialect,
   1777     dialect.execution_ctx_cls._init_statement,
   1778     statement,
   1779     None,
   1780     execution_options,
   1781     statement,
   1782     distilled_parameters,
   1783 )
   1785 return ret

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1842, in Connection._execute_context(self, dialect, constructor, statement, parameters, execution_options, *args, **kw)
   1840     return self._exec_insertmany_context(dialect, context)
   1841 else:
-> 1842     return self._exec_single_context(
   1843         dialect, context, statement, parameters
   1844     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1982, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1979     result = context._setup_result_proxy()
   1981 except BaseException as e:
-> 1982     self._handle_dbapi_exception(
   1983         e, str_statement, effective_parameters, cursor, context
   1984     )
   1986 return result

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:2351, in Connection._handle_dbapi_exception(self, e, statement, parameters, cursor, context, is_sub_exec)
   2349 elif should_wrap:
   2350     assert sqlalchemy_exception is not None
-> 2351     raise sqlalchemy_exception.with_traceback(exc_info[2]) from e
   2352 else:
   2353     assert exc_info[1] is not None

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1961                 break
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:
   1968     self.dispatch.after_cursor_execute(
   1969         self,
   1970         cursor,
   (...)   1974         context.executemany,
   1975     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: (sqlite3.OperationalError) near "where": syntax error
[SQL: 
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
where max_bid > 20
]
(Background on this error at: https://sqlalche.me/e/20/e3q8)

HAVING

If we want to filter on the aggregate function value, we need to use HAVING instead of WHERE

q = """
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
having max_bid > 20
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId bidderName  n_bids  min_bid  max_bid
0  174767945     C****2       3    24.44    34.00
1  174767945     b****z       4    25.00    33.00
2  174871788     J****3       1    21.00    21.00
3  174871788     v****l       3    15.00    22.00
4  174901466     c****8       1    39.99    39.99

ORDER BY

Sorting works in an intuitive way

q = """
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
having max_bid > 20
order by max_bid desc, biddername
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId bidderName  n_bids  min_bid  max_bid
0  180573534     j****a       1    301.0    301.0
1  180573534     A****3       4    140.0    300.0
2  180601736     c****c       4    180.0    201.0
3  180601736     A****8       2    150.0    200.0
4  180601736     B****a       1    160.0    160.0

LIMIT

We’ve been asking for the head of our DataFrame to limit output – we can do this directly in the query:

q = """
select itemid, biddername, count(*) as n_bids, min(bidamount) as min_bid, 
max(bidamount) as max_bid
from bids
group by itemid, biddername
having max_bid > 20
order by max_bid desc, biddername
limit 1
"""
print(auctions.query(q))
      itemId bidderName  n_bids  min_bid  max_bid
0  180573534     j****a       1    301.0    301.0

Exercise: Bidder Participation

In our sample, how many bidders participate in multiple auctions? And how many auctions do they participate in?

Solutions: Bidder Participation

q = """
select biddername, count(distinct itemid) as n_auctions
from bids
group by biddername
having n_auctions > 1
"""
bidder_participation = auctions.query(q)
print(bidder_participation.shape[0])
60

Solutions: Bidder Participation

We’ll see soon that we could also do this with a “subquery”

q = """
select count(*) from (
    select biddername, count(distinct itemid) as n_auctions
    from bids
    group by biddername
    having n_auctions > 1
) as a
"""
print(auctions.query(q))
   count(*)
0        60

Solutions: Bidder Participation

import numpy as np
bidder_participation.hist(
    bins = np.arange(
        np.min(bidder_participation['n_auctions']), 
        np.max(bidder_participation['n_auctions'])+1
    )
);

Window Functions

OVER

If we want to compute operations by group and assign it as a new variable, we need to tell SQL how to organize the groups:

q = """
select itemid, min(bidamount) over (partition by itemid) as min_bid, itemprice
from bids
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  min_bid  itemPrice
0  165561698     9.91       9.91
1  170983900     9.91       9.91
2  172998011     9.91       9.91
3  172998011     9.91       9.91
4  173907435    14.99      14.99

LAG

Window functions are particularly useful if we need to lag data in SQL

q = """
select itemid, 
min(bidamount) over (partition by itemid) as min_bid, 
itemprice,
lag(itemprice) over (partition by itemid order by bidtime) as lagged_price
from bids
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  min_bid  itemPrice  lagged_price
0  165561698     9.91       9.91           NaN
1  170983900     9.91       9.91           NaN
2  172998011     9.91       9.91           NaN
3  172998011     9.91       9.91          9.91
4  173907435    14.99      14.99           NaN

Creating Columns

String Concatenation

String concatenation in SQL is performed with ||

q = """
select title, itemid, title || " " || description as full_description
from items
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
                                               title     itemId  \
0         Womens Size M The North Face Zip Up Jacket  179353985   
1  The North Face Women's Size 4 Tan/Khaki Lightw...  177087535   
2  The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock Ne...  180876361   
3  The North Face Women's Medium Sweaters/Shirt L...  177763109   
4  The North Face Mens Red Flat Front Slash Pocke...  179660197   

                                    full_description  
0  Womens Size M The North Face Zip Up Jacket <p>...  
1  The North Face Women's Size 4 Tan/Khaki Lightw...  
2  The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock Ne...  
3  The North Face Women's Medium Sweaters/Shirt L...  
4  The North Face Mens Red Flat Front Slash Pocke...

Arithmetic

q = """
select itemid, currentprice, shipping, 
currentprice + shipping as final_price
from items
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  currentPrice  shipping  final_price
0  179353985         10.99         0        10.99
1  177087535         24.98         0        24.98
2  180876361         19.99         0        19.99
3  177763109         15.00         0        15.00
4  179660197         12.99         0        12.99

CASE WHEN

SQL’s if-else statement (similar to R’s ifelse or case_when verbs)

q = """
select itemid, currentprice, shipping, 
currentprice + case when shipping == 0 then 5 else shipping end as final_price
from items
order by shipping desc
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  currentPrice  shipping  final_price
0  176705357         19.99         2        21.99
1  179025543         14.99         2        16.99
2  179353985         10.99         0        15.99
3  177087535         24.98         0        29.98
4  180876361         19.99         0        24.99

More Cases

We can use LIKE to pattern match – % means zero, one, or multiple characters (this is a bad application – why?)

q = """
select itemid, currentprice, 
case when lower(description) like "%small%" then "small"
when lower(description) like "%medium%" then "medium"
when lower(description) like "%large%" then "large"
else null end as size
from items
where size is not null
"""
print(auctions.query(q).head())
      itemId  currentPrice   size
0  177087535         24.98  small
1  180876361         19.99  small
2  177763109         15.00  large
3  179660197         12.99  small
4  176601978          9.99  large

Database Operations

Adding to our Class

  • SQL doesn’t just query data – it also allows us to change the database
    • We can add tables (temporary or otherwise), for example
  • We want to be able to also run statements that don’t just return data, but perform operations on our database
  • Let’s add an execute method that facilitates this for our engine

New Class

from sqlalchemy import text

class DataBase:
    def __init__(self, loc: str, db_type: str = "sqlite") -> None:
        """Initialize the class and connect to the database"""
        self.loc = loc
        self.db_type = db_type
        self.engine = create_engine(f'{self.db_type}:///{self.loc}')
    def query(self, q: str) -> pd.DataFrame:
        """Run a query against the database and return a DataFrame"""
        with Session(self.engine) as session:
            df = pd.read_sql(q, session.bind)
        return(df)
    def execute(self, q: str) -> None:
        """Execute statement on the database"""
        with self.engine.connect() as conn:
            conn.execute(text(q))

auctions = DataBase(path)

Creating a Joined Table

If we want to create a new table that contains only observations with bids where the buy now option wasn’t used, we can execute a statement to do so.

q = """
create table full_data as 
select i.*, b.* 
from items as i
inner join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
where i.isbuynowused = 0
"""
auctions.execute("drop table if exists full_data")
auctions.execute(q)
print(auctions.query("select * from full_data limit 1"))
   index buyerCountry buyerCountryCode buyerState buyerStreet buyerZip  \
0  12100         None               US       None        None     None   

                              categoryParentList defaultShippingResults  \
0  10|Clothing|27|Women's Clothing|154|Outerwear                   None   

                                         description  \
0  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...   

                                         imageServer  ...  \
0  https://shopgoodwillimages.azureedge.net/produ...  ...   

                      bidTime quantity:1 bidIPAddress adCode serverIP  \
0  2023-10-18 05:54:55.327000          1         None   None     None   

  retracted bidderName highBidderName isBuyerHighBidder isLoggedInBuyer  
0         0     B****4         B****4                 0               0  

[1 rows x 100 columns]

Dropping Tables

Why do we need the first statement? Because SQL won’t let us create a table that already has a given name

q = """
create table full_data as 
select * from items
"""
auctions.execute(q)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: table full_data already exists

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[31], line 5
      1 q = """
      2 create table full_data as 
      3 select * from items
      4 """
----> 5 auctions.execute(q)

Cell In[29], line 17, in DataBase.execute(self, q)
     15 """Execute statement on the database"""
     16 with self.engine.connect() as conn:
---> 17     conn.execute(text(q))

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1415, in Connection.execute(self, statement, parameters, execution_options)
   1413     raise exc.ObjectNotExecutableError(statement) from err
   1414 else:
-> 1415     return meth(
   1416         self,
   1417         distilled_parameters,
   1418         execution_options or NO_OPTIONS,
   1419     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/sql/elements.py:523, in ClauseElement._execute_on_connection(self, connection, distilled_params, execution_options)
    521     if TYPE_CHECKING:
    522         assert isinstance(self, Executable)
--> 523     return connection._execute_clauseelement(
    524         self, distilled_params, execution_options
    525     )
    526 else:
    527     raise exc.ObjectNotExecutableError(self)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1637, in Connection._execute_clauseelement(self, elem, distilled_parameters, execution_options)
   1625 compiled_cache: Optional[CompiledCacheType] = execution_options.get(
   1626     "compiled_cache", self.engine._compiled_cache
   1627 )
   1629 compiled_sql, extracted_params, cache_hit = elem._compile_w_cache(
   1630     dialect=dialect,
   1631     compiled_cache=compiled_cache,
   (...)   1635     linting=self.dialect.compiler_linting | compiler.WARN_LINTING,
   1636 )
-> 1637 ret = self._execute_context(
   1638     dialect,
   1639     dialect.execution_ctx_cls._init_compiled,
   1640     compiled_sql,
   1641     distilled_parameters,
   1642     execution_options,
   1643     compiled_sql,
   1644     distilled_parameters,
   1645     elem,
   1646     extracted_params,
   1647     cache_hit=cache_hit,
   1648 )
   1649 if has_events:
   1650     self.dispatch.after_execute(
   1651         self,
   1652         elem,
   (...)   1656         ret,
   1657     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1842, in Connection._execute_context(self, dialect, constructor, statement, parameters, execution_options, *args, **kw)
   1840     return self._exec_insertmany_context(dialect, context)
   1841 else:
-> 1842     return self._exec_single_context(
   1843         dialect, context, statement, parameters
   1844     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1982, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1979     result = context._setup_result_proxy()
   1981 except BaseException as e:
-> 1982     self._handle_dbapi_exception(
   1983         e, str_statement, effective_parameters, cursor, context
   1984     )
   1986 return result

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:2351, in Connection._handle_dbapi_exception(self, e, statement, parameters, cursor, context, is_sub_exec)
   2349 elif should_wrap:
   2350     assert sqlalchemy_exception is not None
-> 2351     raise sqlalchemy_exception.with_traceback(exc_info[2]) from e
   2352 else:
   2353     assert exc_info[1] is not None

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1961                 break
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:
   1968     self.dispatch.after_cursor_execute(
   1969         self,
   1970         cursor,
   (...)   1974         context.executemany,
   1975     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: (sqlite3.OperationalError) table full_data already exists
[SQL: 
create table full_data as 
select * from items
]
(Background on this error at: https://sqlalche.me/e/20/e3q8)

Temporary Tables Creation

q = """
create temp table full_data as 
select i.*, b.* 
from items as i
inner join bids as b
on i.itemid = b.itemid
where i.isbuynowused = 0
"""
auctions.execute("drop table if exists full_data")
auctions.execute(q)
print(auctions.query("select * from full_data limit 1"))
   index buyerCountry buyerCountryCode buyerState buyerStreet buyerZip  \
0  12100         None               US       None        None     None   

                              categoryParentList defaultShippingResults  \
0  10|Clothing|27|Women's Clothing|154|Outerwear                   None   

                                         description  \
0  <p>The North Face Womens Pink Long Sleeve Mock...   

                                         imageServer  ...  \
0  https://shopgoodwillimages.azureedge.net/produ...  ...   

                      bidTime quantity:1 bidIPAddress adCode serverIP  \
0  2023-10-18 05:54:55.327000          1         None   None     None   

  retracted bidderName highBidderName isBuyerHighBidder isLoggedInBuyer  
0         0     B****4         B****4                 0               0  

[1 rows x 100 columns]

Rerunning

auctions = DataBase(path)
print(auctions.query("select * from full_data limit 1"))
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: no such table: full_data

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

OperationalError                          Traceback (most recent call last)
Cell In[33], line 2
      1 auctions = DataBase(path)
----> 2 print(auctions.query("select * from full_data limit 1"))

Cell In[29], line 12, in DataBase.query(self, q)
     10 """Run a query against the database and return a DataFrame"""
     11 with Session(self.engine) as session:
---> 12     df = pd.read_sql(q, session.bind)
     13 return(df)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:734, in read_sql(sql, con, index_col, coerce_float, params, parse_dates, columns, chunksize, dtype_backend, dtype)
    724     return pandas_sql.read_table(
    725         sql,
    726         index_col=index_col,
   (...)    731         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    732     )
    733 else:
--> 734     return pandas_sql.read_query(
    735         sql,
    736         index_col=index_col,
    737         params=params,
    738         coerce_float=coerce_float,
    739         parse_dates=parse_dates,
    740         chunksize=chunksize,
    741         dtype_backend=dtype_backend,
    742         dtype=dtype,
    743     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1836, in SQLDatabase.read_query(self, sql, index_col, coerce_float, parse_dates, params, chunksize, dtype, dtype_backend)
   1779 def read_query(
   1780     self,
   1781     sql: str,
   (...)   1788     dtype_backend: DtypeBackend | Literal["numpy"] = "numpy",
   1789 ) -> DataFrame | Iterator[DataFrame]:
   1790     """
   1791     Read SQL query into a DataFrame.
   1792 
   (...)   1834 
   1835     """
-> 1836     result = self.execute(sql, params)
   1837     columns = result.keys()
   1839     if chunksize is not None:

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/pandas/io/sql.py:1659, in SQLDatabase.execute(self, sql, params)
   1657 args = [] if params is None else [params]
   1658 if isinstance(sql, str):
-> 1659     return self.con.exec_driver_sql(sql, *args)
   1660 return self.con.execute(sql, *args)

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1775, in Connection.exec_driver_sql(self, statement, parameters, execution_options)
   1770 execution_options = self._execution_options.merge_with(
   1771     execution_options
   1772 )
   1774 dialect = self.dialect
-> 1775 ret = self._execute_context(
   1776     dialect,
   1777     dialect.execution_ctx_cls._init_statement,
   1778     statement,
   1779     None,
   1780     execution_options,
   1781     statement,
   1782     distilled_parameters,
   1783 )
   1785 return ret

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1842, in Connection._execute_context(self, dialect, constructor, statement, parameters, execution_options, *args, **kw)
   1840     return self._exec_insertmany_context(dialect, context)
   1841 else:
-> 1842     return self._exec_single_context(
   1843         dialect, context, statement, parameters
   1844     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1982, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1979     result = context._setup_result_proxy()
   1981 except BaseException as e:
-> 1982     self._handle_dbapi_exception(
   1983         e, str_statement, effective_parameters, cursor, context
   1984     )
   1986 return result

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:2351, in Connection._handle_dbapi_exception(self, e, statement, parameters, cursor, context, is_sub_exec)
   2349 elif should_wrap:
   2350     assert sqlalchemy_exception is not None
-> 2351     raise sqlalchemy_exception.with_traceback(exc_info[2]) from e
   2352 else:
   2353     assert exc_info[1] is not None

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/base.py:1963, in Connection._exec_single_context(self, dialect, context, statement, parameters)
   1961                 break
   1962     if not evt_handled:
-> 1963         self.dialect.do_execute(
   1964             cursor, str_statement, effective_parameters, context
   1965         )
   1967 if self._has_events or self.engine._has_events:
   1968     self.dispatch.after_cursor_execute(
   1969         self,
   1970         cursor,
   (...)   1974         context.executemany,
   1975     )

File /opt/anaconda3/envs/website/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sqlalchemy/engine/default.py:943, in DefaultDialect.do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context)
    942 def do_execute(self, cursor, statement, parameters, context=None):
--> 943     cursor.execute(statement, parameters)

OperationalError: (sqlite3.OperationalError) no such table: full_data
[SQL: select * from full_data limit 1]
(Background on this error at: https://sqlalche.me/e/20/e3q8)
  • Temporary tables get dropped when a session or connection is closed
  • This is desirable if these are just intermediate tables (they won’t clog up your database)
  • This is undesirable if they take a lot of time to compute (maybe just save them as normal tables)

Exercise: Temporary Tables

For each bid, express its time as relative to when the auction ended (endtime). That means that if an auction was 10 hours long (as measured by endtime - starttime) and a bid was placed an hour before the auction ended, it would have a normalized timestamp of .1. Plot this distribution as a histogram.

Hint: to compute the difference in time between two dates, use julianday(time1)-julianday(time2).

Solutions: Temporary Tables

q = """
create temp table auction_length as 
select itemid, starttime, endtime, 
julianday(endtime) - julianday(starttime) as length
from items
"""
auctions.execute("drop table if exists auction_length")
auctions.execute(q)
print(auctions.query('select * from auction_length limit 4'))
      itemId                   startTime                     endTime    length
0  179353985  2023-09-28 17:00:54.000000  2023-10-02 18:14:00.000000  4.050764
1  177087535  2023-09-04 22:54:00.000000  2023-09-12 19:46:00.000000  7.869444
2  180876361  2023-10-14 03:18:40.000000  2023-10-19 04:04:40.000000  5.031944
3  177763109  2023-09-12 08:22:45.000000  2023-09-17 18:34:00.000000  5.424479

Solutions: Temporary Tables

q = """
select b.itemid, b.bidtime, a.starttime, a.endtime,
(julianday(endtime)-julianday(bidtime)) / a.length as time_norm
from bids as b
inner join auction_length as a
on b.itemid=a.itemid
"""
df = auctions.query(q)
print(df.head())
      itemId                     bidTime                   startTime  \
0  178348858  2023-09-18 16:11:04.587000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
1  178348858  2023-09-22 14:22:06.700000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
2  178348858  2023-09-23 12:35:18.157000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
3  178348858  2023-09-23 18:23:27.993000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
4  178348858  2023-09-23 18:37:47.213000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   

                      endTime  time_norm  
0  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.986422  
1  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.227799  
2  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.048825  
3  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.002085  
4  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.000163

Solutions: Temporary Tables

df['time_norm'].hist(bins=20)

What does this tell us? Are these results surprising?

Subqueries

Alternative Solution

q = """
select b.itemid, b.bidtime, a.starttime, a.endtime,
(julianday(endtime)-julianday(bidtime)) / a.length as time_norm
from bids as b
inner join (
    select itemid, starttime, endtime, 
    julianday(endtime) - julianday(starttime) as length
    from items
) as a
on b.itemid=a.itemid
"""
df = auctions.query(q)
print(df.head(2))
      itemId                     bidTime                   starttime  \
0  178348858  2023-09-18 16:11:04.587000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
1  178348858  2023-09-22 14:22:06.700000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   

                      endtime  time_norm  
0  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.986422  
1  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.227799

Better Approach

Using WITH improves readability

q = """
with a as (
    select itemid, starttime, endtime, 
    julianday(endtime) - julianday(starttime) as length
    from items
)
select b.itemid, b.bidtime, a.starttime, a.endtime,
(julianday(endtime)-julianday(bidtime)) / a.length as time_norm
from bids as b
inner join a
on b.itemid=a.itemid
"""
df = auctions.query(q)
print(df.head(2))
      itemId                     bidTime                   starttime  \
0  178348858  2023-09-18 16:11:04.587000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   
1  178348858  2023-09-22 14:22:06.700000  2023-09-18 14:29:56.000000   

                      endtime  time_norm  
0  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.986422  
1  2023-09-23 18:39:00.000000   0.227799

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Writing Readable SQL Queries1

No unified linting tools such as pylint for python

  • SQL is NOT case sensitive and ignores whitespace
  • It is easy to write unreadable code

Always assume that the code you write today will be inherited by a murderous psychopath who knows where you live!

Use Consistent Indentation/Breaks

SELECT <X>
FROM <A>
WHERE <TRUE>

not

SELECT <X> FROM <A> WHERE <TRUE>

One Column Per Line

SELECT 
 a
,b
,c
FROM <A>
WHERE <TRUE>

not

SELECT a,b,c
FROM <A>
WHERE <TRUE>

Why put the comma first?

Aligning Column Names

Align column names with manual spaces

SELECT
 short_column_name         AS col1
,longer_column_name        AS col2,
,longest_column_name       AS col3,
,short_column_name + 2 * 3 AS col4
FROM <A>
WHERE <TRUE>

Nesting Subqueries

If nesting subqueries, use consistent indentation

SELECT 
 a
,b
FROM (
    SELECT
     c
    ,d
    FROM <A>
    WHERE <TRUE>
)

Additional Suggestions

Additional suggestions:

  • Capitalize operators, such as SELECT, FROM, WHERE, etc
  • Use snake_case for naming columns and subqueries
  • Avoid using spaces in names
  • Adopt aliases for all tables used, even if only using one table
  • Less rewriting to do when (usually not if) you add a second table
  • Popular approach is to use first letters of words in table names, such as ct for customer_transactions

Managing a sqlite Database

CSV to Database

If you have CSV files, you can create a database like this:

create_db.py
engine = create_engine("sqlite:////Users/hlukas/git/personal_website/static/econ-481/data/auctions.db") 

bids = pd.read_csv('/Users/hlukas/Google Drive/Raw Data/goodwill/final_data/the north face/bidding_data.csv')
items = pd.read_csv('/Users/hlukas/Google Drive/Raw Data/goodwill/final_data/the north face/item_data.csv')

items_small = items.sample(500)
bids_small = bids.loc[bids['itemId'].isin(items_small['itemId'])]

bids_small.to_sql(con=engine, name='bids', if_exists='replace') 
items_small.to_sql(con=engine, name='items', if_exists='replace')

Inserting Data Into Table

update_db.py
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base

engine = create_engine(f'sqlite:///{path}')
Base = declarative_base()
Base.metadata.create_all(engine)

items = pd.read_csv('/Users/hlukas/Google Drive/Raw Data/goodwill/final_data/the north face/item_data.csv')

items_small = items.sample(500)

items_small.to_sql(con=engine, name='items', if_exists='append')

Using sqlalchemy

Avoiding Queries

We don’t really need to write SQL if we don’t want to to use the package:

from sqlalchemy import MetaData, Table, select
from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base

engine = create_engine(f'sqlite:///{path}')
Base = declarative_base()
Base.metadata.reflect(engine)
bids = Base.metadata.tables['bids']
query = select(bids.c.itemId, bids.c.bidAmount)\
    .where(bids.c.bidAmount==10)\
    .limit(5)

with Session(engine) as s:
    print(pd.DataFrame(s.execute(query)))
      itemId  bidAmount
0  177106026       10.0
1  177963226       10.0
2  178438915       10.0
3  181622497       10.0
4  179719241       10.0

Group Operations

from sqlalchemy import func, distinct

query = select(
    bids.c.itemId, 
    func.count(distinct(bids.c.bidderName)
).label('n_bidders'))\
    .group_by(bids.c.itemId)

with Session(engine) as s:
    print(pd.DataFrame(s.execute(query))) 
        itemId  n_bidders
0    165561698          1
1    170983900          1
2    172998011          2
3    173907435          1
4    174445924          3
..         ...        ...
167  182760698          1
168  182777527          1
169  182883873          2
170  182894197          1
171  182925212          2

[172 rows x 2 columns]

Distributed Computing

Distributed Computing and SQL

  • One benefit of knowing SQL is that it gives us access to database solutions that facilitate parallelized operations
    • For example, IBM Netezza or Spark
  • If our data is big, having the database parallelize operations makes our lives much easier

Non-Parallel Computing

  • Simple example
    • I have the vector [1,2,3,4,5]
    • I want to square each element
  • This requires five computations
  • Suppose each computation takes \(x\) seconds
  • If I run this computation on one “computer”, it will take roughly \(5x\) seconds to compute

Parallel Computing

  • Suppose now I have five computers available
  • If the “overhead” to coordinate the tasks is \(t\) (sending out the instructions and getting back the results), then parallel computing is an improvement if

\[ 5x \geq x + t \iff t \leq 5 \]

Parallel Computing

  • Netezza and Spark (and many others) handle a lot of this on their own
  • What should we consider outside of the overhead cost when considering running code in parallel?
    • Is the task actually parallelizable?
    • How many cores should I allocate to the task?

Appendix

Luke Wylie

Luke Wylie Eating Ice Cream