SQL Practice Problems

57 beginning, intermediate, and advanced challenges for you to

solve using a “learn-by-doing” approach

MySQL version

Sylvia Moestl Vasilik

 Copyright © 2018
by Sylvia Moestl Vasilik

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission
of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Ordering Information:
Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others.
For details, contact the publisher at info@SQLPracticeProblems.com.
Table of Contents
How to use this book ................................................................................................................... 7
Setup ............................................................................................................................................ 9
Introductory Problems ............................................................................................................... 10
1. Which shippers do we have? .......................................................................................... 10
2. Certain fields from Categories ........................................................................................ 10
3. Sales Representatives ...................................................................................................... 11
4. Sales Representatives in the United States ..................................................................... 11
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID .......................................................................... 11
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles ............................................................................................ 12
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName ......................................................................... 13
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium ............................................................................ 14
9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin America .......................................................... 14
10. Employees, in order of age.......................................................................................... 16
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field ............................................................ 16
12. Employees full name ................................................................................................... 17
13. OrderDetails amount per line item .............................................................................. 17
14. How many customers? ................................................................................................ 18
15. When was the first order? ........................................................................................... 18
16. Countries where there are customers .......................................................................... 19
17. Contact titles for customers ......................................................................................... 20
18. Products with associated supplier names .................................................................... 20
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used ......................................................................... 22
Intermediate Problems ............................................................................................................... 25
20. Categories, and the total products in each category .................................................... 25
21. Total customers per country/city................................................................................. 25
22. Products that need reordering...................................................................................... 26
23. Products that need reordering, continued .................................................................... 27
24. Customer list by region ............................................................................................... 27
25. High freight charges .................................................................................................... 29
 26. High freight charges—2015 ........................................................................................ 29
27. High freight charges with between ............................................................................. 29
28. High freight charges—last year .................................................................................. 30
29. Employee/Order Detail report ..................................................................................... 31
30. Customers with no orders ........................................................................................... 31
31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4 ............................................................. 32
Advanced Problems ................................................................................................................... 34
32. High-value customers.................................................................................................. 34
33. High-value customers—total orders ........................................................................... 34
34. High-value customers—with discount ........................................................................ 35
35. Month-end orders ........................................................................................................ 36
36. Orders with many line items ....................................................................................... 37
37. Orders—random assortment ....................................................................................... 37
38. Orders—accidental double-entry ................................................................................ 38
39. Orders—accidental double-entry details ..................................................................... 39
40. Orders—accidental double-entry details, derived table .............................................. 39
41. Late orders................................................................................................................... 40
42. Late orders—which employees? ................................................................................. 41
43. Late orders vs. total orders .......................................................................................... 41
44. Late orders vs. total orders—missing employee ......................................................... 42
45. Late orders vs. total orders—fix null .......................................................................... 42
46. Late orders vs. total orders—percentage ..................................................................... 43
47. Late orders vs. total orders—fix decimal .................................................................... 43
48. Customer grouping ...................................................................................................... 44
49. Customer grouping—fix null ...................................................................................... 45
50. Customer grouping with percentage ........................................................................... 45
51. Customer grouping—flexible...................................................................................... 46
52. Countries with suppliers or customers ........................................................................ 47
53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2 ....................................................... 48
54. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 3 ....................................................... 48
55. First order in each country .......................................................................................... 49
56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period ......................................................... 50
 57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period, version 2 ........................................ 51
ANSWERS ................................................................................................................................ 54
Introductory Problems ............................................................................................................... 54
1. Which shippers do we have? .......................................................................................... 54
2. Certain fields from Categories ........................................................................................ 55
3. Sales Representatives ...................................................................................................... 55
4. Sales Representatives in the United States ..................................................................... 56
5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID .......................................................................... 56
6. Suppliers and ContactTitles ............................................................................................ 57
7. Products with “queso” in ProductName ......................................................................... 58
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium ............................................................................ 58
9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin America .......................................................... 59
10. Employees, in order of age.......................................................................................... 60
11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field ............................................................ 60
12. Employees full name ................................................................................................... 61
13. OrderDetails amount per line item .............................................................................. 62
14. How many customers? ................................................................................................ 62
15. When was the first order? ........................................................................................... 63
16. Countries where there are customers .......................................................................... 63
17. Contact titles for customers ......................................................................................... 64
18. Products with associated supplier names .................................................................... 64
19. Orders and the Shipper that was used ......................................................................... 65
Intermediate Problems ............................................................................................................... 67
20. Categories, and the total products in each category .................................................... 67
21. Total customers per country/city................................................................................. 67
22. Products that need reordering...................................................................................... 68
23. Products that need reordering, continued .................................................................... 69
24. Customer list by region ............................................................................................... 70
25. High freight charges .................................................................................................... 71
26. High freight charges—2015 ........................................................................................ 71
27. High freight charges with between ............................................................................. 72
28. High freight charges—last year .................................................................................. 73
 29. Employee/Order Detail report ..................................................................................... 73
30. Customers with no orders ........................................................................................... 74
31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4 ............................................................. 75
Advanced Problems ................................................................................................................... 76
32. High-value customers.................................................................................................. 76
33. High-value customers—total orders ........................................................................... 77
34. High-value customers—with discount ........................................................................ 78
35. Month-end orders ........................................................................................................ 79
36. Orders with many line items ....................................................................................... 79
37. Orders—random assortment ....................................................................................... 80
38. Orders—accidental double-entry ................................................................................ 80
39. Orders—accidental double-entry details ..................................................................... 81
40. Orders—accidental double-entry details, derived table .............................................. 81
41. Late orders................................................................................................................... 82
42. Late orders—which employees? ................................................................................. 83
43. Late orders vs. total orders .......................................................................................... 83
44. Late orders vs. total orders—missing employee ......................................................... 84
45. Late orders vs. total orders—fix null .......................................................................... 85
46. Late orders vs. total orders—percentage ..................................................................... 86
47. Late orders vs. total orders—fix decimal .................................................................... 87
48. Customer grouping ...................................................................................................... 89
49. Customer grouping—fix null ...................................................................................... 90
50. Customer grouping with percentage ........................................................................... 91
51. Customer grouping—flexible...................................................................................... 92
52. Countries with suppliers or customers ........................................................................ 94
53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2 ....................................................... 94
54. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 3 ....................................................... 95
55. First order in each country .......................................................................................... 96
56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period ......................................................... 97
57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period, version 2 ........................................ 98
How to use this book
This book assumes that you have some basic background knowledge about relational
databases. However, I’ve added some beginner level questions to gradually introduce the
various parts of the SQL Select statement for those with less experience in SQL.
A note on the database used: it is not the standard Northwind database that was the sample
included with several Microsoft database products. There have been many changes made to it,
including additional tables, and modified data, to support the problems in this book. Do not try
to use the standard Northwind sample database, many of the problems will not work.
Do you need to finish all the problems? Absolutely not. The introductory problems are fairly
simple, so you may want to skip directly to the Intermediate Problems section. If you’re not a
beginner, but not sure where you should start, look at the problems and expected results in the
Introductory Problems section, and make sure you completely understand the concepts and
answers, then you could try skipping to the Intermediate problems.
If you’re uncertain about how to start on a problem, the hints are designed to gradually walk
you through how to approach the problem. Try hard to solve the problems first without the
hints! It’s best to start out using the “no hint” version of this document. Then, only open the
main document (with hints) if you really need it. But if you’re stuck, the hints will get you
started.
If possible, don’t look at the answers (in the back of the book), until you’ve solved the problem
to the best of your ability on your own. You will learn and remember much more.
Should you search online for answers, examples, etc.? Absolutely. I expect you to do research
online as you work through the problems. I do not include all the syntax in this book. In my
day-to-day work as a data engineer, I would be lost without being able to do online research.
Sometimes I search online for a reminder of a certain syntax, sometimes for examples of a
particular type of code, and sometimes for approaches to specific problems. Learning to find
answers online effectively can cut your problem-solving time dramatically.
Once you finish all the questions, you’ll have some extremely useful skills in data analysis and
data mining. The ability to use SQL is the foundation of data engineering, and (thankfully)
does not change very frequently at all. This is useful because the SQL that you learned 10
years ago will probably be just as useful 10 years in the future! And it’s a relatively rare skill.

7
I’ve interviewed many people who rated themselves a “9 or 10” on a 1-10 scale of SQL
knowledge, who could not even do a simple Group by in a SQL statement.
Select statements aren’t all there is to SQL, of course. There’s also the syntax that lets you
modify data (update, insert, delete), and create and modify database objects), as well as
programming concepts such as stored procedures, and of course many other topics.
In this book, I’m only presenting problems involving retrieving data with Select statements,
because that’s by far the most common need, and it’s also an area where it’s very difficult for
people to get solid practice with real life data problems, unless they’re already working as a
data engineer or programmer. And it’s a critical first step for almost any other database topics.
Thank you for purchasing this book! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. For any
questions or issues, please send email to feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com and I will be
happy to respond.

8
Setup
This section will help you with the install of MySQL 8.0, and will walk you through the setup
of the practice database.
MySQL 8.0 is a big leap in functionality from previous versions. It includes many very useful
features that other DBMS systems (such as Microsoft SQL Server) have had for a long time,
such as Window functions and CTEs (Common Table Expressions). The problems in this book
are dependent on having MySQL 8.0 instead of previous versions.
Installing MySQL 8.0
To download and install MySQL 8.0, visit this website:
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/
It’s a straightforward setup. Make sure you install version 8.0 (MySQL 8.0 Generally
Available (GA) Release ) and not an earlier version. You can choose the operating system you
wish to use, such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, etc.
Make sure you also install MySQL Workbench or a similar tool, in order to actually run SQL
against the database. MySQL Workbench is included in the default installation, and that’s the
tool I use to walk through the setup of the practice database.
If you have any issues, the install documentation is online here:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/installing.html
Setting up the practice database
This video will walk you through the setup of the practice database used for the problems.
https://youtu.be/490vum3jyyU
It assumes that you have installed MySQL version 8.0.

Questions or problems with the setup?

Please email me at feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com

9
 Introductory Problems

1. Which shippers do we have?

We have a table called Shippers. Return all the fields from all the shippers

Expected Results

ShipperID CompanyName Phone

1 Speedy Express (503) 555-9831
2 United Package (503) 555-3199
3 Federal Shipping (503) 555-9931

2. Certain fields from Categories

In the Categories table, selecting all the fields using this SQL:
Select * from Categories;

…will return 4 columns. We only want to see two columns, CategoryName and Description.

Expected Results

CategoryName Description
Beverages Soft drinks, coffees, teas, beers, and ales
Condiments Sweet and savory sauces, relishes, spreads, and seasonings
Confections Desserts, candies, and sweet breads
Dairy Products Cheeses
Grains/Cereals Breads, crackers, pasta, and cereal
Meat/Poultry Prepared meats
Produce Dried fruit and bean curd
Seafood Seaweed and fish

10
3. Sales Representatives
We’d like to see just the FirstName, LastName, and HireDate of all the employees with the
Title of Sales Representative. Write a SQL statement that returns only those employees.

Expected Results

FirstName LastName HireDate

Nancy Davolio 2010-05-01 00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling 2010-04-01 00:00:00.000
Margaret Peacock 2011-05-03 00:00:00.000
Michael Suyama 2011-10-17 00:00:00.000
Robert King 2012-01-02 00:00:00.000
Anne Dodsworth 2012-11-15 00:00:00.000

4. Sales Representatives in the United States

Now we’d like to see the same columns as above, but only for those employees that both have
the title of Sales Representative, and also are in the United States.

Expected Results

FirstName LastName HireDate

Nancy Davolio 2010-05-01 00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling 2010-04-01 00:00:00.000
Margaret Peacock 2011-05-03 00:00:00.000

5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID

Show all the orders placed by a specific employee. The EmployeeID for this Employee (Steven
Buchanan) is 5.

11
Expected Results

OrderID OrderDate
10248 2014-07-04 08:00:00.000
10254 2014-07-11 02:00:00.000
10269 2014-07-31 00:00:00.000
10297 2014-09-04 21:00:00.000
10320 2014-10-03 12:00:00.000
10333 2014-10-18 18:00:00.000
10358 2014-11-20 05:00:00.000
10359 2014-11-21 14:00:00.000
10372 2014-12-04 10:00:00.000
10378 2014-12-10 00:00:00.000
10397 2014-12-27 17:00:00.000
10463 2015-03-04 13:00:00.000
10474 2015-03-13 16:00:00.000
10477 2015-03-17 02:00:00.000
10529 2015-05-07 01:00:00.000
10549 2015-05-27 03:00:00.000
10569 2015-06-16 15:00:00.000
10575 2015-06-20 22:00:00.000
10607 2015-07-22 09:00:00.000

(some result rows were not included, the total should be 42)

6. Suppliers and ContactTitles

In the Suppliers table, show the SupplierID, ContactName, and ContactTitle for those
Suppliers whose ContactTitle is not Marketing Manager.

Expected Results

SupplierID ContactName ContactTitle

1 Charlotte Cooper Purchasing Manager
2 Shelley Burke Order Administrator
3 Regina Murphy Sales Representative
5 Antonio del Valle Saavedra Export Administrator

12
 6 Mayumi Ohno Marketing Representative
8 Peter Wilson Sales Representative
9 Lars Peterson Sales Agent
11 Petra Winkler Sales Manager
12 Martin Bein International Marketing Mgr.
13 Sven Petersen Coordinator Foreign Markets
14 Elio Rossi Sales Representative
16 Cheryl Saylor Regional Account Rep.
17 Michael Björn Sales Representative
18 Guylène Nodier Sales Manager
19 Robb Merchant Wholesale Account Agent
20 Chandra Leka Owner
21 Niels Petersen Sales Manager
22 Dirk Luchte Accounting Manager
23 Anne Heikkonen Product Manager
24 Wendy Mackenzie Sales Representative
26 Giovanni Giudici Order Administrator
27 Marie Delamare Sales Manager
28 Eliane Noz Sales Representative
29 Chantal Goulet Accounting Manager

7. Products with “queso” in ProductName

In the products table, we’d like to see the ProductID and ProductName for those products
where the ProductName includes the string “queso”.

Expected Results

ProductID ProductName
11 Queso Cabrales
12 Queso Manchego La Pastora

13
8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium
Looking at the Orders table, there’s a field called ShipCountry. Write a query that shows the
OrderID, CustomerID, and ShipCountry for the orders where the ShipCountry is either France
or Belgium.

Expected Results

OrderID CustomerID ShipCountry

10248 VINET France
10251 VICTE France
10252 SUPRD Belgium
10265 BLONP France
10274 VINET France
10295 VINET France
10297 BLONP France
10302 SUPRD Belgium
10311 DUMON France
10331 BONAP France
10334 VICTE France
10340 BONAP France
10350 LAMAI France
10358 LAMAI France
10360 BLONP France
10362 BONAP France
10371 LAMAI France

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 96)

9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin America

Now, instead of just wanting to return all the orders from France or Belgium, we want to show
all the orders from any Latin American country. But we don’t have a list of Latin American
countries in a table in the Northwind database. So, we’re going to just use this list of Latin
American countries that happen to be in the Orders table:
Brazil
Mexico

14
Argentina
Venezuela
It doesn’t make sense to use multiple Or statements anymore. Use the In statement.
Note:
By default, MySQL only returns 100 rows in the result window. In order to show all of the
rows, click the drop-down at the top of your query tab that says “Limit to 100 rows”. Choose a
higher number, or choose “Don’t Limit”.

Expected Results

OrderID CustomerID ShipCountry

10250 HANAR Brazil
10253 HANAR Brazil
10256 WELLI Brazil
10257 HILAA Venezuela
10259 CENTC Mexico
10261 QUEDE Brazil
10268 GROSR Venezuela
10276 TORTU Mexico
10283 LILAS Venezuela
10287 RICAR Brazil
10290 COMMI Brazil
10291 QUEDE Brazil
10292 TRADH Brazil
10293 TORTU Mexico
10296 LILAS Venezuela
10299 RICAR Brazil
10304 TORTU Mexico
10308 ANATR Mexico
10319 TORTU Mexico
10322 PERIC Mexico
10330 LILAS Venezuela
10347 FAMIA Brazil
10354 PERIC Mexico
10357 LILAS Venezuela

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 173)

15
10. Employees, in order of age
For all the employees in the Employees table, show the FirstName, LastName, Title, and
BirthDate. Order the results by BirthDate, so we have the oldest employees first.

Expected Results

FirstName LastName Title BirthDate

Margaret Peacock Sales Representative 1955-09-19 00:00:00.000
Nancy Davolio Sales Representative 1966-12-08 00:00:00.000
Andrew Fuller Vice President, Sales 1970-02-19 00:00:00.000
Steven Buchanan Sales Manager 1973-03-04 00:00:00.000
Laura Callahan Inside Sales Coordinator 1976-01-09 00:00:00.000
Robert King Sales Representative 1978-05-29 00:00:00.000
Michael Suyama Sales Representative 1981-07-02 00:00:00.000
Janet Leverling Sales Representative 1981-08-30 00:00:00.000
Anne Dodsworth Sales Representative 1984-01-27 00:00:00.000

11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field

In the output of the query above, showing the Employees in order of BirthDate, we see the
time of the BirthDate field, which we don’t want. Show only the date portion of the BirthDate
field.

Expected Results

FirstName LastName Title DateOnlyBirthDate

Margaret Peacock Sales Representative 1955-09-19
Nancy Davolio Sales Representative 1966-12-08
Andrew Fuller Vice President, Sales 1970-02-19
Steven Buchanan Sales Manager 1973-03-04
Laura Callahan Inside Sales Coordinator 1976-01-09
Robert King Sales Representative 1978-05-29
Michael Suyama Sales Representative 1981-07-02
Janet Leverling Sales Representative 1981-08-30
Anne Dodsworth Sales Representative 1984-01-27

16
12. Employees full name
Show the FirstName and LastName columns from the Employees table, and then create a new
column called FullName, showing FirstName and LastName joined together in one column,
with a space in-between.

Expected Results

FirstName LastName FullName

Nancy Davolio Nancy Davolio
Andrew Fuller Andrew Fuller
Janet Leverling Janet Leverling
Margaret Peacock Margaret Peacock
Steven Buchanan Steven Buchanan
Michael Suyama Michael Suyama
Robert King Robert King
Laura Callahan Laura Callahan
Anne Dodsworth Anne Dodsworth

13. OrderDetails amount per line item

In the OrderDetails table, we have the fields UnitPrice and Quantity. Create a new field,
TotalPrice, that multiplies these two together. We’ll ignore the Discount field for now.
In addition, show the OrderID, ProductID, UnitPrice, and Quantity. Order by OrderID and
ProductID.

Expected Results

OrderID ProductID UnitPrice Quantity TotalPrice

10248 11 14.00 12 168.00
10248 42 9.80 10 98.00
10248 72 34.80 5 174.00
10249 14 18.60 9 167.40
10249 51 42.40 40 1696.00
10250 41 7.70 10 77.00
10250 51 42.40 35 1484.00
10250 65 16.80 15 252.00

17
 10251 22 16.80 6 100.80
10251 57 15.60 15 234.00
10251 65 16.80 20 336.00
10252 20 64.80 40 2592.00
10252 33 2.00 25 50.00
10252 60 27.20 40 1088.00
10253 31 10.00 20 200.00
10253 39 14.40 42 604.80
10253 49 16.00 40 640.00
10254 24 3.60 15 54.00
10254 55 19.20 21 403.20
10254 74 8.00 21 168.00
10255 2 15.20 20 304.00
10255 16 13.90 35 486.50

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 2155)

14. How many customers?

How many customers do we have in the Customers table? Show one value only, and don’t rely
on getting the record count at the end of a resultset.

Expected Results

TotalCustomers
91

15. When was the first order?

Show the date of the first order ever made in the Orders table.

18
Expected Results

FirstOrder
2014-07-04 08:00:00.000

16. Countries where there are customers

Show a list of countries where the Northwind company has customers. Sort the list by the
name of the country

Expected Results

Country
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Mexico
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA
Venezuela

19
17. Contact titles for customers
Show a list of all the different values in the Customers table for ContactTitles. Also include a
count for each ContactTitle.
This is similar in concept to the previous question “Countries where there are customers”,
except we now want a count for each ContactTitle.

Expected Results

ContactTitle TotalContactTitle
Owner 17
Sales Representative 17
Marketing Manager 12
Sales Manager 11
Accounting Manager 10
Sales Associate 7
Marketing Assistant 6
Sales Agent 5
Assistant Sales Agent 2
Order Administrator 2
Assistant Sales Representative 1
Owner/Marketing Assistant 1

18. Products with associated supplier names

We’d like to show, for each product, the associated Supplier. Show the ProductID,
ProductName, and the CompanyName of the Supplier.
Sort the result by ProductID.
This question will introduce what may be a new concept—the Join clause in SQL. The Join
clause is used to join two or more relational database tables together in a logical way.
Here’s a data model of the relationship between Products and Suppliers.

20
Expected Results

ProductID ProductName Supplier

1 Chai Exotic Liquids
2 Chang Exotic Liquids
3 Aniseed Syrup Exotic Liquids
4 Chef Anton's Cajun Seasoning New Orleans Cajun Delights
5 Chef Anton's Gumbo Mix New Orleans Cajun Delights
6 Grandma's Boysenberry Spread Grandma Kelly's Homestead
7 Uncle Bob's Organic Dried Pears Grandma Kelly's Homestead
8 Northwoods Cranberry Sauce Grandma Kelly's Homestead
9 Mishi Kobe Niku Tokyo Traders
10 Ikura Tokyo Traders
11 Queso Cabrales Cooperativa de Quesos 'Las Cabras'
12 Queso Manchego La Pastora Cooperativa de Quesos 'Las Cabras'
13 Konbu Mayumi's
14 Tofu Mayumi's
15 Genen Shouyu Mayumi's
16 Pavlova Pavlova, Ltd.
17 Alice Mutton Pavlova, Ltd.
18 Carnarvon Tigers Pavlova, Ltd.

21
 19 Teatime Chocolate Biscuits Specialty Biscuits, Ltd.
20 Sir Rodney's Marmalade Specialty Biscuits, Ltd.
21 Sir Rodney's Scones Specialty Biscuits, Ltd.

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 77)

19. Orders and the Shipper that was used

We’d like to show a list of the Orders that were made, including the Shipper that was used.
Show the OrderID, OrderDate (date only), and CompanyName of the Shipper, and sort by
OrderID.
In order to not show all the orders (there’s more than 800), show only those rows with an
OrderID of less than 10270.

Expected Results

OrderID OrderDate Shipper

10248 2014-07-04 Federal Shipping
10249 2014-07-05 Speedy Express
10250 2014-07-08 United Package
10251 2014-07-08 Speedy Express
10252 2014-07-09 United Package
10253 2014-07-10 United Package
10254 2014-07-11 United Package
10255 2014-07-12 Federal Shipping
10256 2014-07-15 United Package
10257 2014-07-16 Federal Shipping
10258 2014-07-17 Speedy Express
10259 2014-07-18 Federal Shipping
10260 2014-07-19 Speedy Express
10261 2014-07-19 United Package
10262 2014-07-22 Federal Shipping
10263 2014-07-23 Federal Shipping
10264 2014-07-24 Federal Shipping
10265 2014-07-25 Speedy Express
10266 2014-07-26 Federal Shipping
10267 2014-07-29 Speedy Express

22
10268 2014-07-30 Federal Shipping
10269 2014-07-31 Speedy Express

23
 Congratulations! You've completed the introductory problems.

Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please
email me at feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com.

24
 Intermediate Problems

20. Categories, and the total products in each category

For this problem, we’d like to see the total number of products in each category. Sort the
results by the total number of products, in descending order.

Expected Results

CategoryName TotalProducts
Confections 13
Beverages 12
Condiments 12
Seafood 12
Dairy Products 10
Grains/Cereals 7
Meat/Poultry 6
Produce 5

21. Total customers per country/city

In the Customers table, show the total number of customers per Country and City.

Expected Results

Country City TotalCustomers

UK London 6
Mexico México D.F. 5
Brazil Sao Paulo 4
Brazil Rio de Janeiro 3
Spain Madrid 3

25
 Argentina Buenos Aires 3
France Paris 2
USA Portland 2
France Nantes 2
Portugal Lisboa 2
Finland Oulu 1
Italy Reggio Emilia 1
France Reims 1
Brazil Resende 1
Austria Salzburg 1
Venezuela San Cristóbal 1
USA San Francisco 1
USA Seattle 1

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 69)

22. Products that need reordering

What products do we have in our inventory that should be reordered? For now, just use the
fields UnitsInStock and ReorderLevel, where UnitsInStock is less than or equal to the
ReorderLevel, Ignore the fields UnitsOnOrder and Discontinued.
Sort the results by ProductID.

Expected Results

ProductID ProductName UnitsInStock ReorderLevel

2 Chang 17 25
3 Aniseed Syrup 13 25
5 Chef Anton's Gumbo Mix 0 0
11 Queso Cabrales 22 30
17 Alice Mutton 0 0
21 Sir Rodney's Scones 3 5
29 Thüringer Rostbratwurst 0 0
30 Nord-Ost Matjeshering 10 15
31 Gorgonzola Telino 0 20
32 Mascarpone Fabioli 9 25
37 Gravad lax 11 25

26
 43 Ipoh Coffee 17 25
45 Rogede sild 5 15
48 Chocolade 15 25
49 Maxilaku 10 15
53 Perth Pasties 0 0
56 Gnocchi di nonna Alice 21 30
64 Wimmers gute Semmelknödel 22 30
66 Louisiana Hot Spiced Okra 4 20
68 Scottish Longbreads 6 15
70 Outback Lager 15 30
74 Longlife Tofu 4 5

23. Products that need reordering, continued

Now we need to incorporate these fields—UnitsInStock, UnitsOnOrder, ReorderLevel,
Discontinued—into our calculation. We’ll define “products that need reordering” with the
following:
• UnitsInStock plus UnitsOnOrder are less than or equal to ReorderLevel
• The Discontinued flag is false (0).

Expected Results

Product Product Name Units In Units On Reorder Discontinued

ID Stock Order Level
30 Nord-Ost 10 0 15 0
Matjeshering
70 Outback Lager 15 10 30 0

24. Customer list by region

A salesperson for Northwind is going on a business trip to visit customers. He would like to
see a list of all customers, sorted by region, alphabetically.

27
However, he wants the customers with no region (null in the Region field) to be at the end,
instead of at the top, where you’d normally find the null values. Within the same region,
companies should be sorted by CustomerID.

Expected Results

CustomerID CompanyName Region

OLDWO Old World Delicatessen AK
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets BC
LAUGB Laughing Bacchus Wine Cellars BC
LETSS Let's Stop N Shop CA
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers Co. Cork
GROSR GROSELLA-Restaurante DF
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets ID
ISLAT Island Trading Isle of Wight
LILAS LILA-Supermercado Lara
THECR The Cracker Box MT
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery NM
LINOD LINO-Delicateses Nueva Esparta
GREAL Great Lakes Food Market OR
HUNGC Hungry Coyote Import Store OR

(skipping some rows in the

middle, the total rows returned
should be 91)

TORTU Tortuga Restaurante NULL

VAFFE Vaffeljernet NULL
VICTE Victuailles en stock NULL
VINET Vins et alcools Chevalier NULL
WANDK Die Wandernde Kuh NULL
WARTH Wartian Herkku NULL
WILMK Wilman Kala NULL
WOLZA Wolski Zajazd NULL

28
25. High freight charges
Some of the countries we ship to have very high freight charges. We'd like to investigate some
more shipping options for our customers, to be able to offer them lower freight charges. Return
the three ship countries with the highest average freight overall, in descending order by
average freight.

Expected Results

ShipCountry AverageFreight
Austria 184.7875
Ireland 145.0126
USA 112.8794

26. High freight charges—2015

We're continuing on the question above on high freight charges. Now, instead of using all the
orders we have, we only want to see orders from the year 2015.

Expected result

ShipCountry AverageFreight
Austria 178.3642
Switzerland 117.1775
France 113.991

27. High freight charges with between

Another (incorrect) answer to the problem above is this:

29
Select
ShipCountry
,avg(freight) as AverageFreight
From Orders
Where
OrderDate between '2015-01-01' and '2015-12-31'
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc
Limit 3;

Notice when you run this, it gives Sweden as the ShipCountry with the third highest freight
charges. However, this is wrong—it should be France.
Find the OrderID that is causing the SQL statement above to be incorrect.

Expected Result

(no expected results this time—we’re looking for one specific OrderID)

28. High freight charges—last year

We're continuing to work on high freight charges. We now want to get the three ship countries
with the highest average freight charges. But instead of filtering for a particular year, we want
to use the last 12 months of order data, using as the end date the last OrderDate in Orders.

Expected Results

ShipCountry AverageFreight
Ireland 200.21
Austria 186.4596
USA 119.3032

30
29. Employee/Order Detail report
We're doing inventory, and need to show Employee and Order Detail information like the
below, for all orders. Sort by OrderID and Product ID.

Expected Results

EmployeeID LastName OrderID ProductName Quantity

5 Buchanan 10248 Queso Cabrales 12
5 Buchanan 10248 Singaporean Hokkien Fried Mee 10
5 Buchanan 10248 Mozzarella di Giovanni 5
6 Suyama 10249 Tofu 9
6 Suyama 10249 Manjimup Dried Apples 40
4 Peacock 10250 Jack's New England Clam Chowder 10
4 Peacock 10250 Manjimup Dried Apples 35
4 Peacock 10250 Louisiana Fiery Hot Pepper Sauce 15
3 Leverling 10251 Gustaf's Knäckebröd 6
3 Leverling 10251 Ravioli Angelo 15
3 Leverling 10251 Louisiana Fiery Hot Pepper Sauce 20
4 Peacock 10252 Sir Rodney's Marmalade 40
4 Peacock 10252 Geitost 25
4 Peacock 10252 Camembert Pierrot 40
3 Leverling 10253 Gorgonzola Telino 20
3 Leverling 10253 Chartreuse verte 42
3 Leverling 10253 Maxilaku 40
5 Buchanan 10254 Guaraná Fantástica 15
5 Buchanan 10254 Pâté chinois 21
5 Buchanan 10254 Longlife Tofu 21

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 2155)

30. Customers with no orders

There are some customers who have never actually placed an order. Show these customers.

31
Expected Results

Customers_CustomerID Orders_CustomerID
FISSA NULL
PARIS NULL

31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4

One employee (Margaret Peacock, EmployeeID 4) has placed the most orders. However, there
are some customers who've never placed an order with her. Show only those customers who
have never placed an order with her.

Expected Result

CustomerID CustomerID
SEVES NULL
THEBI NULL
LAZYK NULL
GROSR NULL
PARIS NULL
FISSA NULL
SPECD NULL
LAUGB NULL
PRINI NULL
VINET NULL
FRANR NULL
CONSH NULL
NORTS NULL
PERIC NULL
DUMON NULL
SANTG NULL

32
 Congratulations! You've completed the intermediate problems.

Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please
email me at feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com.

33
 Advanced Problems

32. High-value customers

We want to send all of our high-value customers a special VIP gift. We're defining high-value
customers as those who've made at least 1 order with a total value (not including the discount)
equal to $10,000 or more. We only want to consider orders made in the year 2016.

Expected Result

CustomerID CompanyName OrderID TotalOrderAmount

QUICK QUICK-Stop 10865 17250.00
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 11030 16321.90
HANAR Hanari Carnes 10981 15810.00
KOENE Königlich Essen 10817 11490.70
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 10889 11380.00
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers 10897 10835.24

33. High-value customers—total orders

The manager has changed his mind. Instead of requiring that customers have at least one
individual orders totaling $10,000 or more, he wants to define high-value customers as those
who have orders totaling $15,000 or more in 2016. How would you change the answer to the
problem above?

34
Expected Result

CustomerID CompanyName TotalOrderAmount

SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 42806.25
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90
QUICK QUICK-Stop 40526.99
HANAR Hanari Carnes 24238.05
HUNGO Hungry Owl All-Night Grocers 22796.34
RATTC Rattlesnake Canyon Grocery 21725.60
KOENE Königlich Essen 20204.95
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90

34. High-value customers—with discount

Change the above query to use the discount when calculating high-value customers. Order by
the total amount which includes the discount.

Expected Result

Customer Company Name Totals Without Totals With

ID Discount Discount
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90 41210.65
QUICK QUICK-Stop 40526.99 37217.315
SAVEA Save-a-lot Markets 42806.25 36310.11
HANAR Hanari Carnes 24238.05 23821.2
Rattlesnake Canyon
RATTC 21725.60 21238.2705
Grocery
Hungry Owl All-Night
HUNGO 22796.34 20402.120000000003
Grocers
KOENE Königlich Essen 20204.95 19582.774
WHITC White Clover Markets 15278.90 15278.9
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85 13644.067500000001
SUPRD Suprêmes délices 11862.50 11644.6
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40 11338.550000000001

35
35. Month-end orders
At the end of the month, salespeople are likely to try much harder to get orders, to meet their
month-end quotas. Show all orders made on the last day of the month. Order by EmployeeID
and OrderID

Expected Result

EmployeeID OrderID OrderDate

1 10461 2015-02-28 00:00:00.000
1 10616 2015-07-31 00:00:00.000
2 10583 2015-06-30 00:00:00.000
2 10686 2015-09-30 00:00:00.000
2 10989 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
2 11060 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
3 10432 2015-01-31 00:00:00.000
3 10988 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
3 11063 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 10343 2014-10-31 00:00:00.000
4 10522 2015-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 10584 2015-06-30 00:00:00.000
4 10617 2015-07-31 00:00:00.000
4 10725 2015-10-31 00:00:00.000
4 11061 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
4 11062 2016-04-30 00:00:00.000
5 10269 2014-07-31 00:00:00.000
6 10317 2014-09-30 00:00:00.000
7 10490 2015-03-31 00:00:00.000
8 10399 2014-12-31 00:00:00.000
8 10460 2015-02-28 00:00:00.000
8 10491 2015-03-31 00:00:00.000
8 10987 2016-03-31 00:00:00.000
9 10687 2015-09-30 00:00:00.000

36
36. Orders with many line items
The Northwind mobile app developers are testing an app that customers will use to show
orders. In order to make sure that even the largest orders will show up correctly on the app,
they'd like some samples of orders that have lots of individual line items.
Show the 10 orders with the most line items, in order of total line items.

Expected Result

OrderID TotalOrderDetails
11077 25
10847 6
10657 6
10979 6
10294 5
10382 5
10406 5
10558 5
10670 5
10607 5

37. Orders—random assortment

The Northwind mobile app developers would now like to just get a random assortment of
orders for beta testing on their app. Show a random set of 10 orders.

37
Expected Result

(Note—your results will be different, because we’re returning a random set)

OrderID
10715
11033
10655
10296
10658
10642
10682
10942
10458
10800

38. Orders—accidental double-entry

Janet Leverling, one of the salespeople, has come to you with a request. She thinks that she
accidentally entered a line item twice on an order, each time with a different ProductID, but the
same quantity. She remembers that the quantity was 60 or more. Show all the OrderIDs with
line items that match this, in order of OrderID.

Expected Result

OrderID
10263
10263
10658
10990
11030

38
39. Orders—accidental double-entry details
Based on the previous question, we now want to show details of the order, for orders that
match the above criteria.

Expected Result

OrderID ProductID UnitPrice Quantity Discount

10263 16 13.90 60 0.25
10263 30 20.70 60 0.25
10263 24 3.60 65 0
10263 74 8.00 65 0.25
10658 60 34.00 55 0.05
10658 21 10.00 60 0
10658 40 18.40 70 0.05
10658 77 13.00 70 0.05
10990 34 14.00 60 0.15
10990 21 10.00 65 0
10990 55 24.00 65 0.15
10990 61 28.50 66 0.15
11030 29 123.79 60 0.25
11030 5 21.35 70 0
11030 2 19.00 100 0.25
11030 59 55.00 100 0.25

40. Orders—accidental double-entry details, derived table

Here's another way of getting the same results as in the previous problem, using a derived table
instead of a CTE. However, there's a bug in this SQL. It returns 20 rows instead of 16. Correct
the SQL.
Problem SQL:
Select
OrderDetails.OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,Discount
From OrderDetails

39
 Join (
Select
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By OrderID, Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1
) PotentialProblemOrders
on PotentialProblemOrders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Order by OrderID, ProductID;

41. Late orders

Some customers are complaining about their orders arriving late. Which orders are late? Sort
the results by OrderID.

Expected Result

OrderID OrderDate RequiredDate ShippedDate

10264 2014-07-24 2014-08-21 2014-08-23
10271 2014-08-01 2014-08-29 2014-08-30
10280 2014-08-14 2014-09-11 2014-09-12
10302 2014-09-10 2014-10-08 2014-10-09
10309 2014-09-19 2014-10-17 2014-10-23
10380 2014-12-12 2015-01-09 2015-01-16
10423 2015-01-23 2015-02-06 2015-02-24
10427 2015-01-27 2015-02-24 2015-03-03
10433 2015-02-03 2015-03-03 2015-03-04
10451 2015-02-19 2015-03-05 2015-03-12
10483 2015-03-24 2015-04-21 2015-04-25
10515 2015-04-23 2015-05-07 2015-05-23
10523 2015-05-01 2015-05-29 2015-05-30
10545 2015-05-22 2015-06-19 2015-06-26
10578 2015-06-24 2015-07-22 2015-07-25
10593 2015-07-09 2015-08-06 2015-08-13
10596 2015-07-11 2015-08-08 2015-08-12
10660 2015-09-08 2015-10-06 2015-10-15

(Some rows were not included, your total should be 39)

40
42. Late orders—which employees?
Some salespeople have more orders arriving late than others. Maybe they're not following up
on the order process, and need more training. Which salespeople have the most orders arriving
late?

Expected Result

EmployeeID LastName TotalLateOrders

4 Peacock 10
3 Leverling 5
8 Callahan 5
9 Dodsworth 5
2 Fuller 4
7 King 4
1 Davolio 3
6 Suyama 3

43. Late orders vs. total orders

Andrew, the VP of sales, has been doing some more thinking some more about the problem of
late orders. He realizes that just looking at the number of orders arriving late for each
salesperson isn't a good idea. It needs to be compared against the total number of orders per
salesperson. We want results like the following:

Expected Result

EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders

1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

41
44. Late orders vs. total orders—missing employee
There's an employee missing in the answer from the problem above. Fix the SQL to show all
employees who have taken orders.

Expected Result

EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders

1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
5 Buchanan 42 NULL
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

45. Late orders vs. total orders—fix null

Continuing on the answer for above query, let's fix the results for row 5 - Buchanan. He should
have a 0 instead of a Null in LateOrders.

Expected Result

EmployeeID LastName AllOrders LateOrders

1 Davolio 123 3
2 Fuller 96 4
3 Leverling 127 5
4 Peacock 156 10
5 Buchanan 42 0
6 Suyama 67 3
7 King 72 4
8 Callahan 104 5
9 Dodsworth 43 5

42
46. Late orders vs. total orders—percentage
Now we want to get the percentage of late orders over total orders.

Expected Result

Employee ID Last Name All Orders Late Orders Percent Late Orders
1 Davolio 123 3 0.0244
2 Fuller 96 4 0.0417
3 Leverling 127 5 0.0394
4 Peacock 156 10 0.0641
5 Buchanan 42 0 0.0000
6 Suyama 67 3 0.0448
7 King 72 4 0.0556
8 Callahan 104 5 0.0481
9 Dodsworth 43 5 0.1163

47. Late orders vs. total orders—fix decimal

Now for the PercentageLateOrders, we get a decimal value like we should. But to make the
output easier to read, let's cut the PercentLateOrders off at 2 digits to the right of the decimal
point.

Expected Result

Employee ID Last Name All Orders Late Orders Percent Late Orders
1 Davolio 123 3 0.02
2 Fuller 96 4 0.04
3 Leverling 127 5 0.04
4 Peacock 156 10 0.06
5 Buchanan 42 0 0.00
6 Suyama 67 3 0.04
7 King 72 4 0.06
8 Callahan 104 5 0.05
9 Dodsworth 43 5 0.12

43
48. Customer grouping
Andrew Fuller, the VP of sales at Northwind, would like to do a sales campaign for existing
customers. He'd like to categorize customers into groups, based on how much they ordered in
2016. Then, depending on which group the customer is in, he will target the customer with
different sales materials.
The customer grouping categories are 0 to 1,000, 1,000 to 5,000, 5,000 to 10,000, and over
10,000. So, if the total dollar amount of the customer’s purchases in that year were between 0
to 1,000, they would be in the “Low” group. A customer with purchase from 1,000 to 5,000
would be in the “Medium” group, and so on.
A good starting point for this query is the answer from the problem “High-value customers—
total orders”. Also, we only want to show customers who have ordered in 2016.
Order the results by CustomerID.

Expected Result

CustomerID Company Name Total Order Customer

Amount Group
ALFKI Alfreds Futterkiste 2302.20 Medium
ANATR Ana Trujillo Emparedados y 514.40 Low
helados
ANTON Antonio Moreno Taquería 660.00 Low
AROUT Around the Horn 5838.50 High
BERGS Berglunds snabbköp 8110.55 High
BLAUS Blauer See Delikatessen 2160.00 Medium
BLONP Blondesddsl père et fils 730.00 Low
BOLID Bólido Comidas preparadas 280.00 Low
BONAP Bon app' 7185.90 High
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40 Very High
BSBEV B's Beverages 2431.00 Medium
CACTU Cactus Comidas para llevar 1576.80 Medium
CHOPS Chop-suey Chinese 4429.40 Medium
COMMI Comércio Mineiro 513.75 Low
CONSH Consolidated Holdings 931.50 Low
DRACD Drachenblut Delikatessen 2809.61 Medium
DUMON Du monde entire 860.10 Low
EASTC Eastern Connection 9569.31 High
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90 Very High
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85 Very High
FRANK Frankenversand 5587.00 High

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 81)

44
49. Customer grouping—fix null
There's a problem with the answer for the previous question. The CustomerGroup value for
one of the rows is null.
Fix the SQL so that there are no nulls in the CustomerGroup field.

Expected Result

CustomerID Company Name Total Order Amount Customer Group

MAISD Maison Dewey 5000.20 High

(The total output is still 81 rows, but here we’re only showing the row which had a null
CustomerGroup value in the answer to the previous problem.)

50. Customer grouping with percentage

Based on the above query, show all the defined CustomerGroups, and the percentage in each.
Sort by the total in each group, in descending order.

Expected Result

CustomerGroup TotalInGroup PercentageInGroup

Medium 35 0.4321
Low 20 0.2469
High 13 0.1605
Very High 13 0.1605

45
51. Customer grouping—flexible
Andrew, the VP of Sales is still thinking about how best to group customers, and define low,
medium, high, and very high value customers. He now wants complete flexibility in grouping
the customers, based on the dollar amount they've ordered. He doesn’t want to have to edit
SQL in order to change the boundaries of the customer groups.
How would you write the SQL?
There's a table called CustomerGroupThreshold that you will need to use. Use only orders
from 2016.

Expected Result

Customer Company Name Total Order Customer Group

ID Amount Name
ALFKI Alfreds Futterkiste 2302.20 Medium
ANATR Ana Trujillo Emparedados y 514.40 Low
helados
ANTON Antonio Moreno Taquería 660.00 Low
AROUT Around the Horn 5838.50 High
BERGS Berglunds snabbköp 8110.55 High
BLAUS Blauer See Delikatessen 2160.00 Medium
BLONP Blondesddsl père et fils 730.00 Low
BOLID Bólido Comidas preparadas 280.00 Low
BONAP Bon app' 7185.90 High
BOTTM Bottom-Dollar Markets 12227.40 Very High
BSBEV B's Beverages 2431.00 Medium
CACTU Cactus Comidas para llevar 1576.80 Medium
CHOPS Chop-suey Chinese 4429.40 Medium
COMMI Comércio Mineiro 513.75 Low
CONSH Consolidated Holdings 931.50 Low
DRACD Drachenblut Delikatessen 2809.61 Medium
DUMON Du monde entire 860.10 Low
EASTC Eastern Connection 9569.31 High
ERNSH Ernst Handel 42598.90 Very High
FOLKO Folk och fä HB 15973.85 Very High
FRANK Frankenversand 5587.00 High

(The expected results are the same as for the original problem, it’s just that we’re getting the
answer differently. The total rows returned will still be 81, we’re just showing a subset here.)

46
52. Countries with suppliers or customers
Some Northwind employees are planning a business trip, and would like to visit as many
suppliers and customers as possible. For their planning, they’d like to see a list of all countries
where suppliers and/or customers are based.

Expected Results

Country
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
UK
USA
Venezuela

47
53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2
The employees going on the business trip don’t want just a raw list of countries, they want
more details. We’d like to see output like the below, in the Expected Results.

Expected Result

SupplierCountry CustomerCountry
NULL Argentina
Australia NULL
NULL Austria
NULL Belgium
Brazil Brazil
Canada Canada
Denmark Denmark
Finland Finland
France France
Germany Germany
NULL Ireland
Italy Italy
Japan NULL
NULL Mexico
Netherlands NULL
Norway Norway
NULL Poland
NULL Portugal
Singapore NULL
Spain Spain
Sweden Sweden
NULL Switzerland
UK UK
USA USA
NULL Venezuela

54. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 3

The output in the above practice problem is improved, but it’s still not ideal
What we’d really like to see is the country name, the total suppliers, and the total customers.

48
Expected Result

Country TotalSuppliers TotalCustomers

Argentina 0 3
Australia 2 0
Austria 0 2
Belgium 0 2
Brazil 1 9
Canada 2 3
Denmark 1 2
Finland 1 2
France 3 11
Germany 3 11
Ireland 0 1
Italy 2 3
Japan 2 0
Mexico 0 5
Netherlands 1 0
Norway 1 1
Poland 0 1
Portugal 0 2
Singapore 1 0
Spain 1 5
Sweden 2 2
Switzerland 0 2
UK 2 7
USA 4 13
Venezuela 0 4

55. First order in each country

Looking at the Orders table—we’d like to show details for each order that was the first in that
particular country, ordered by OrderID.
So, for each country, we want one row. That row should contain the earliest order for that
country, with the associated ShipCountry, CustomerID, OrderID, and OrderDate.

49
Expected Results

ShipCountry CustomerID OrderID OrderDate

Argentina OCEAN 10409 2015-01-09
Austria ERNSH 10258 2014-07-17
Belgium SUPRD 10252 2014-07-09
Brazil HANAR 10250 2014-07-08
Canada MEREP 10332 2014-10-17
Denmark SIMOB 10341 2014-10-29
Finland WARTH 10266 2014-07-26
France VINET 10248 2014-07-04
Germany TOMSP 10249 2014-07-05
Ireland HUNGO 10298 2014-09-05
Italy MAGAA 10275 2014-08-07
Mexico CENTC 10259 2014-07-18
Norway SANTG 10387 2014-12-18
Poland WOLZA 10374 2014-12-05
Portugal FURIB 10328 2014-10-14
Spain ROMEY 10281 2014-08-14
Sweden FOLKO 10264 2014-07-24
Switzerland CHOPS 10254 2014-07-11
UK BSBEV 10289 2014-08-26
USA RATTC 10262 2014-07-22
Venezuela HILAA 10257 2014-07-16

56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period

There are some customers for whom freight is a major expense when ordering from
Northwind.
However, by batching up their orders, and making one larger order instead of multiple smaller
orders in a short period of time, they could reduce their freight costs significantly.
Show those customers who have made more than 1 order in a 5 day period. The sales people
will use this to help customers reduce their freight costs.
Note: There are more than one way of solving this kind of problem. For this problem, we will
not be using Window functions.

50
Expected Result

Customer Initial Initial Order Next Next Order Days Between

ID Order ID Date Order ID Date Orders
ANTON 10677 2015-09-22 10682 2015-09-25 3
AROUT 10741 2015-11-14 10743 2015-11-17 3
BERGS 10278 2014-08-12 10280 2014-08-14 2
BERGS 10444 2015-02-12 10445 2015-02-13 1
BERGS 10866 2016-02-03 10875 2016-02-06 3
BONAP 10730 2015-11-05 10732 2015-11-06 1
BONAP 10871 2016-02-05 10876 2016-02-09 4
BONAP 10932 2016-03-06 10940 2016-03-11 5
BOTTM 10410 2015-01-10 10411 2015-01-10 0
BOTTM 10944 2016-03-12 10949 2016-03-13 1
BOTTM 10975 2016-03-25 10982 2016-03-27 2
BOTTM 11045 2016-04-23 11048 2016-04-24 1
BSBEV 10538 2015-05-15 10539 2015-05-16 1
BSBEV 10943 2016-03-11 10947 2016-03-13 2
EASTC 11047 2016-04-24 11056 2016-04-28 4
ERNSH 10402 2015-01-02 10403 2015-01-03 1
ERNSH 10771 2015-12-10 10773 2015-12-11 1

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 71)

57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period, version 2

There’s another way of solving the problem above, using a Window function. We would like
to see the following results.

Expected Results

CustomerID InitialOrderDate NextOrderDate DaysBetweenOrders

ANTON 2015-09-22 2015-09-25 3
AROUT 2015-11-14 2015-11-17 3
BERGS 2014-08-12 2014-08-14 2
BERGS 2015-02-12 2015-02-13 1
BERGS 2016-02-03 2016-02-06 3
BONAP 2015-11-05 2015-11-06 1

51
 BONAP 2016-02-05 2016-02-09 4
BONAP 2016-03-06 2016-03-11 5
BOTTM 2015-01-10 2015-01-10 0
BOTTM 2016-03-12 2016-03-13 1
BOTTM 2016-03-25 2016-03-27 2
BOTTM 2016-04-23 2016-04-24 1
BSBEV 2015-05-15 2015-05-16 1
BSBEV 2016-03-11 2016-03-13 2
EASTC 2016-04-24 2016-04-28 4
ERNSH 2015-01-02 2015-01-03 1
ERNSH 2015-12-10 2015-12-11 1
ERNSH 2015-12-11 2015-12-15 4
ERNSH 2016-03-23 2016-03-26 3
ERNSH 2016-04-08 2016-04-13 5
FOLKO 2016-03-26 2016-03-27 1
FOLKO 2016-03-27 2016-04-01 5
FOLKO 2016-04-01 2016-04-06 5
FRANK 2015-09-16 2015-09-19 3

(Some rows were not included, the total should be 69)

52
 Congratulations! You've completed the advanced problems.

Any questions or feedback on the problems, hints, or answers? I'd like to hear from you. Please
email me at feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com.

53
 ANSWERS

Introductory Problems

1. Which shippers do we have?

Select
*
From Shippers;

Discussion

This is a basic select statement, returning all rows, just to get you warmed up.
Most of the time, a simple select statement like this is written all on one line, like this:
Select * From Shippers

But because we’ll be getting more complex quickly, we’ll start out with formatting it with
separate lines for each clause, which we’ll be doing in future questions.

54
2. Certain fields from Categories
Select
CategoryName
,Description
from Categories;

Discussion

Instead of doing a “Select *”, we specify the column names, and only get those columns
returned.

3. Sales Representatives
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 'Sales Representative';

Discussion

This is a simple filter against a string datatype. When comparing a value to a string datatype,
you need to enclose the value in single quotes.
What happens when you don’t? Try running the following:
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = Sales Representative

Notice that you get an error.

55
What if you compare against a number? Try the following:

Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 1;

In some database systems you’ll get an error (because a number does not match the character
datatype in the table) but MySQL does not return an error.

4. Sales Representatives in the United States

Select
FirstName
,LastName
,HireDate
From Employees
Where
Title = 'Sales Representative'
and Country = 'USA';

Discussion

You can have as many filters in the where clause as you need. I usually indent all the filters,
and put them on new lines, in order to make it easier to read.

5. Orders placed by specific EmployeeID

Select
OrderID
,OrderDate
From Orders

56
Where
EmployeeID = 5;

Discussion

This simple query filters for one value in the EmployeeID field, using the “=” comparison
operator.
Here’s another set of very commonly used comparison operators that you’re probably familiar
with from math class:

> Greater than

< Less than
>= Greater than or equal to
<= Less than or equal to

6. Suppliers and ContactTitles

Select
SupplierID
,ContactName
,ContactTitle
From Suppliers
Where
ContactTitle <> 'Marketing Manager';

Discussion

Another way of expressing the Not is by using the following

!=

So, the below is equivalent to the answer with “<>”.

Select
CompanyName
,ContactName
,ContactTitle
From Suppliers
Where

57
 ContactTitle != 'Marketing Manager';

7. Products with “queso” in ProductName

Select
ProductID
,ProductName
From Products
Where
ProductName like '%queso%';

Discussion

The “Like” operator is always used with wildcards, such as the percent symbol (%), which
substitutes for any number of characters.
Note that even though the search string used a lowercase “q” with the Like clause
ProductName like '%queso%'

the resulting rows both had an uppercase Q.

Queso Cabrales
Queso Manchego La Pastora

This is because by default MySQL is case insensitive, although it is also possible to have a
case-sensitive installation, or to specify that a certain column is always case-sensitiv.

8. Orders shipping to France or Belgium

Select
OrderID
,CustomerID

58
 ,ShipCountry
From Orders
where
ShipCountry = 'France'
or ShipCountry = 'Belgium';

Discussion

This is a very simple example, but in many situations you will have multiple where clauses,
with combined “Or” and “And” sections.
In this situation, an alternative would have been to use the “In” operator. We’ll do that in a
future problem.

9. Orders shipping to any country in Latin America

Select
OrderID
,CustomerID
,ShipCountry
From Orders
where
ShipCountry in
(
'Brazil'
,'Mexico'
,'Argentina'
,'Venezuela'
);

Discussion

Using the In statement like this is a very common scenario when writing SQL. Whenever
there’s more than just a few—say 2 or 3—values that we’re filtering for, I will generally put
them on separate lines. It’s easier to read, understand, and modify.
Also, many times the list of items you’re filtering for will be coming from somewhere else—
for instance, a spreadsheet—and will already be on separate lines.

59
10. Employees, in order of age
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,BirthDate
From Employees
Order By Birthdate;

Discussion

This is a simple example of an Order By clause.

By default, MySQL sorts by ascending order (first to last). To sort in descending order (last to
first), run the following, with the desc keyword:
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,BirthDate
From Employees
Order By Birthdate desc; -- keyword desc for last to first search

11. Showing only the Date with a DateTime field

Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,Date(BirthDate) as DateOnlyBirthDate
From Employees
Order By Birthdate;

Discussion

What we’re using here is called a computed column, also sometimes called a calculated
column. Anytime you’re doing something besides just returning the column, as it is stored in

60
the database, you’re using a computed column. In this case, we’re applying a function to
convert the datatype returned to a Date.
Note that we’ve added a name, DateOnlyBirthDate, for our computed column. This is called an
“alias”.
Date(BirthDate) as DateOnlyBirthDate

Run the following SQL, which does not have an alias name. What shows up as the column
headers?
Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Title
,Date(BirthDate)
From Employees
Order By Birthdate;

12. Employees full name

Select
FirstName
,LastName
,Concat(FirstName, ' ',LastName) as FullName
From Employees;

Discussion

This is another example of a computed column. In this case, instead of applying a function to a
field, we’re concatenating two fields.

61
13. OrderDetails amount per line item
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
, UnitPrice * Quantity as TotalPrice
From OrderDetails
Order by
OrderID
,ProductID;

Discussion

Here we have another example of a computed column, this time using the arithmetic operator
“*”for multiplication.

14. How many customers?

Select
count(*) as TotalCustomers
from Customers;

Discussion

Aggregates functions and grouping are very important when retrieving data. In almost all
cases, when doing data analysis, you’ll be using multiple groupings and aggregates.

62
15. When was the first order?
Select
min(OrderDate) as FirstOrder
From Orders;

Discussion

For the aggregate function Count, you don’t need to specify a column name—just count(*) will
work.
However, for other aggregate functions such as Min, Avg, Sum, etc., you will need to specify a
column name since you’re not just counting all rows.

16. Countries where there are customers

Select
Country
From Customers
Group by
Country
Order by
Country;

Discussion

The Group By clause is a cornerstone of SQL. With most data analysis of any complexity at
all, you’ll be using multiple Group By clauses, so they’re important to understand.
Another way of getting the same results is to use the Distinct keyword, as below:

Select distinct
Country
From Customers
Order by
Country;

63
It looks simpler, and works well for queries that are very straightforward. But in everyday use,
you’ll use Group By more often than of Distinct, because you’ll need to use additional
aggregate functions such as Count, and Sum.

17. Contact titles for customers

Select
ContactTitle
, count(*) as TotalContactTitle
From Customers
Group by
ContactTitle
Order by
count(*) desc;

Discussion

This particular construction, with a grouping, and then a count of the total in each group, is
very common both on its own, and as a part of other queries.

18. Products with associated supplier names

Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,CompanyName as Supplier
From Products
Join Suppliers
on Products.SupplierID = Suppliers.SupplierID;

64
Discussion

Joins can range from the very simple, which we have here, to the very complex. You need to
understand them thoroughly, as they’re critical in writing anything but the simplest SQL.
One thing you’ll see when reading SQL code is, instead of something like the answer above,
something like this:
Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,CompanyName as Supplier
From Products P -- Aliased table
Join Suppliers S -- Aliased table
on P.SupplierID = S.SupplierID;

Notice that the Products table and Suppliers table is aliased, or renamed, with one letter
aliases—P and S. If this is done, the P and S need to be used in the On clause as well.
I’m not a fan of this type of aliasing, although it’s common. The only benefit is avoiding some
typing, which is trivial. But the downside is that the code is harder to read and understand.
It’s not so much a problem in small chunks of SQL like this one. However, in long, convoluted
SQL, you’ll find yourself wondering what the one-letter aliases mean, always needing to refer
back to the From clause, and translate in your head.
The only time I use tables aliases is if the table name is extremely long. And then, I use table
alias names that are understandable, just shortened.

19. Orders and the Shipper that was used

Select
OrderID
,Date(OrderDate) as OrderDate
,CompanyName as Shipper
From Orders
join Shippers
on Shippers.ShipperID = Orders.ShipVia
Where
OrderID < 10270
Order by
OrderID;

65
Discussion

As the SQL you write gets more complex, it’s even more important to format it so that it’s
easily readable.

66
 Intermediate Problems

20. Categories, and the total products in each category

Select
CategoryName
,count(*) as TotalProducts
From Products
Join Categories
on Products.CategoryID = Categories.CategoryID
Group by
CategoryName
Order by
count(*) desc;

Discussion

We’re expanding our knowledge of grouping here with a very common scenario—grouping
across two joined tables. In this case, the tables have what’s called a parent-child relationship.
The parent table is Categories, and the child table is Products.

21. Total customers per country/city

Select
Country
,City
,Count(*) as TotalCustomers
From Customers
Group by
Country
,City
Order by
count(*) desc;

67
Discussion

Note that once you have a Group by clause in a SQL statement, every field that appears in the
Select statement needs to either appear in the Group by clause, or needs to have some kind of
aggregate function applied to it.
If you don’t do this, you will get incorrect results. For instance, try running the following SQL,
with the City commented out in the Group by clause:

Select
Country
,City
,Count(*) as TotalCustomers
From Customers
Group by
Country
-- ,City
Order by
count(*) desc;

Most database systems would give you an error, but in MySQL, it will just give you the
incorrect results.
SQL Server will give the following error message:

Msg 8120, Level 16, State 1, Line 3

Column 'Customers.City' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained in
either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause.

22. Products that need reordering

Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,UnitsInStock
,ReorderLevel
From Products
Where
UnitsInStock <= ReorderLevel
Order by ProductID;

68
Discussion

This is a straightforward query on one table. Instead of using a specific string or numeric value
to filter, we’re using another field.

23. Products that need reordering, continued

Select
ProductID
,ProductName
,UnitsInStock
,UnitsOnOrder
,ReorderLevel
,Discontinued
From Products
Where
UnitsInStock + UnitsOnOrder <= ReorderLevel
and Discontinued = 0
Order by ProductID;

Discussion

Instead of writing
and Discontinued = 0

…you can also write the following if you find it easier to read:
and Discontinued = 'false'

MySQL will automatically convert the ‘false’ to 0.

69
24. Customer list by region
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,Region
From Customers
Order By
Case
when Region is null then 1
else 0
End
,Region
,CustomerID

Discussion

Once we have the Case expression set up correctly, you just need to create an Order By clause
for it, and add the additional fields for sorting (Region and CustomerID).
If we had wanted to include the sorting field in the output , you could write this:
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,Region
,Case
when Region is null then 1
else 0
End
as RegionOrder
From Customers
Order By
RegionOrder
,Region
,CustomerID;

You would not need to repeat the case statement in the Order By, you can just refer to the alias
RegionOrder.

70
25. High freight charges
Select
ShipCountry
, Avg(freight) as AverageFreight
From Orders
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc
Limit 3

Discussion

In MySQL, the keyword Limit is the easiest and most commonly used method of showing only
a certain number of records.
SQL Server uses the keyword Top to do the same thing.

26. High freight charges—2015

Select
ShipCountry
,avg(freight) as AverageFreight
From Orders
Where
OrderDate >= '2015-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2016-01-01'
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc
Limit 3;

Discussion

You could also use the following:

Select
ShipCountry
,avg(freight) as AverageFreight
From Orders
Where

71
 year(OrderDate) = 2015 -- using Year function
Group By ShipCountry
Order By AverageFreight desc
Limit 3;

This looks straightforward and is easy to read. However, when you put a function such as Year
on the OrderDate field, any indexes that exist won’t be used anymore, so it will potentially be
much slower.
Also, you can only filter for specific calendar years instead of a date range, so it’s not very
flexible.

27. High freight charges with between

The OrderID that’s causing the different results is 10806.

Discussion

There’s an order made on December 31, 2015 with a really high value in the Freight field. This
would have skewed the results, and put France in third place for highest freight charges, but
only if it were included in the Where clause.
This SQL would have worked fine if OrderDate were a Date field, instead of DateTime.

OrderDate between '2015-01-01' and '2015-12-31'

However, since it’s a DateTime field, it gives an incorrect answer because it's not taking into
account records where the OrderDate is during the day on December 31, 2015.
Note that for a DateTime field, the value
2015-12-31'
is equivalent only to
2015-12-31 00:00:00.000
…and not to values that have a time component.

72
28. High freight charges—last year
Select
ShipCountry
,Avg(freight) as AverageFreight
From Orders
Where
OrderDate >=
DATE_ADD((Select max(OrderDate) from Orders) , INTERVAL -1 year)
Group by ShipCountry
Order by AverageFreight desc
Limit 3;

Discussion

Using SQL like this, that can generate a dynamic date range, is critical for most data analysis
work. Most reports and queries will need to be flexible, without hard-coded date values.

29. Employee/Order Detail report

Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,Employees.LastName
,Orders.OrderID
,Products.ProductName
,OrderDetails.Quantity
From Employees
join Orders
on Orders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
join Products
on Products.ProductID = OrderDetails.ProductID
Order by
Orders.OrderID
,Products.ProductID;

73
Discussion

This problem is more practice with basic joins and multiple tables.
You can replace Join with Inner Join, but mostly people just use Join.

30. Customers with no orders

Select
Customers.CustomerID as Customers_CustomerID
,Orders.CustomerID as Orders_CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Where
Orders.CustomerID is null;

Discussion

There are many ways of getting the same results. The main options are the Left Join with Is
Null, Not In, and Not Exists.
Above, we used the Left Join option. When performance is equivalent, I prefer the Not In
method, shown below.
Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where
CustomerID not in (select CustomerID from Orders);

I believe this is the easiest to read and understand.

Another option is to use Not Exists. This requires a correlated subquery.
Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where Not Exists
(
Select CustomerID
from Orders
where
Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID

74
 );

Performance for the different options can be affected by whether or not the fields are indexed
or nullable. For additional reading on the pros and cons of each method, do some research
online.

31. Customers with no orders for EmployeeID 4

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Orders.CustomerID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
and Orders.EmployeeID = 4
Where
Orders.CustomerID is null;

Discussion

Because the filters in the Where clause are applied after the results of the Join, we need the
EmployeeID = 4 filter in the Join clause, instead of the Where clause.
Run the below query and review the results. It should give you a better sense of how the left
join with “is null” works. Note that the Where clause is commented out.
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Orders.CustomerID
,Orders.EmployeeID
From Customers
left join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
and Orders.EmployeeID = 4
-- Where
-- Orders.CustomerID is null;

The most common way to solve this kind of problem is as above, with a left join. However,
here are some alternatives using Not In and Not Exists.

75
Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where
CustomerID not in (select CustomerID from Orders where EmployeeID = 4);

Select CustomerID
From Customers
Where Not Exists
(
Select CustomerID
from Orders
where Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
and EmployeeID = 4
);

Advanced Problems

32. High-value customers

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,Orders.OrderID
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName

76
 ,Orders.Orderid
Having Sum(Quantity * UnitPrice) > 10000
Order by TotalOrderAmount DESC;

Discussion

If you tried putting this filter

and sum(Quantity * UnitPrice) >= 10000

… in the where clause, you got this error:

Error Code: 1111. Invalid use of group function

Aggregate functions can only be used to filter (with some exceptions) in the Having clause, not
the Where clause.

33. High-value customers—total orders

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
-- ,Orders.OrderID
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
-- ,Orders.Orderid
Having sum(Quantity * UnitPrice) > 15000
Order by TotalOrderAmount desc;

77
Discussion

All that was necessary here was to comment out references in the Select clause and the Group
By clause to OrderID. By doing that, we're grouping at the Customer level, and not at the
Order level.

34. High-value customers—with discount

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalsWithoutDiscount
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice * (1- Discount)) as TotalsWithDiscount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
Having TotalsWithDiscount > 10000
Order by TotalsWithDiscount DESC;

Discussion

Note that you need to use the new calculation for order totals with discounts in the Select
clause, the Having clause, and also the Order by clause.
In MySQL, you can just re-use the field via the column alias in the Having clause, like this:

Having TotalsWithDiscount > 10000

However, in other database systems (such as SQL Server), you must repeat the calculation in
the Having clause, and can’t just re-use it.

78
35. Month-end orders
Select
EmployeeID
,OrderID
,OrderDate
From Orders
Where OrderDate = Last_Day(OrderDate )
Order by
EmployeeID
,OrderID;

Discussion

Very frequently the end of the month will be needed in queries and reports. The Last_Day
function is very useful in these cases.
Here’s a bonus question for you. There are actually 2 more orders where the OrderDate is the
end of the month. They are OrderID 10806 and 10807.

Why are they not showing up in the results? Can you modify the SQL to show these 2 orders
as well?

36. Orders with many line items

Select
OrderID
,count(*) as TotalOrderDetails
From OrderDetails
Group By OrderID
Order By Count(*) desc
Limit 10;

Discussion

Try limiting the rows returned to 50 instead of 10. What happens?

You’ll notice that there are many orders that have 5 total line items. But since we originally
only showed the top 10, SQL Server eliminated most of the orders with 5 line items.

79
37. Orders—random assortment
Select
OrderID
From Orders
Order By Rand()
Limit 10;

Discussion

Using the Rand() function, and then ordering by it and limiting the result, is a reasonable way
of getting a random set of records from a table. However, it may be slow if the table is large.
There are other techniques that can be used if performance is an issue. You can do research
online to find some better, more complex techniques.

38. Orders—accidental double-entry

Select
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By
OrderID
,Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1
Order by
OrderID

Discussion

This SQL shows orders that have at least 1 order detail with a quantity of 60 or more (the
Where clause), and the quantity is duplicated within the order (the Group by and Having
clause). This occurs because we're grouping on both OrderID and Quantity.

80
39. Orders—accidental double-entry details
with PotentialDuplicates as (
Select
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By OrderID, Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1
)
Select
OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,Discount
From OrderDetails
Where
OrderID in (Select OrderID from PotentialDuplicates)
Order by
OrderID
,Quantity;

Discussion

There are quite a few different ways of getting the same results for this problem. Based on
years of painful troubleshooting caused by poorly-written, tangled SQL, I suggest that writing
easily understandable, straightforward code is one of the most important things to strive for.
Using a well thought-out CTE is one way of doing this.
In the next problem, we'll look at another way of getting the same result.

40. Orders—accidental double-entry details, derived table

Select
OrderDetails.OrderID
,ProductID
,UnitPrice
,Quantity
,Discount
From OrderDetails

81
 Join (
Select distinct
OrderID
From OrderDetails
Where Quantity >= 60
Group By OrderID, Quantity
Having Count(*) > 1
) PotentialProblemOrders
on PotentialProblemOrders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Order by OrderID, ProductID;

Discussion

Note the Distinct keyword, added after the Select in the derived table. This gives us only
distinct rows in the output, which avoids the problem with duplicate OrderIDs.

41. Late orders

Select
OrderID
,Date(OrderDate) as OrderDate
,Date(RequiredDate) as RequiredDate
,Date(ShippedDate) as ShippedDate
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Order by
OrderID;

Discussion

This is a straight-forward query that we'll use as a base for future problems.

82
42. Late orders—which employees?
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,Count(*) as TotalLateOrders
From Orders
Join Employees
on Employees.EmployeeID = Orders.EmployeeID
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Group By
Employees.EmployeeID
,Employees.LastName
Order by TotalLateOrders desc;

Discussion

In many database systems (such as SQL Server), when a query has a Group By clause, each
column in the Select statement needs to either also be grouped by, or have an aggregate (sum,
count) applied to it.
MySQL does not require this. A column in a query that has a Group By clause does not have to
be in the Group by clause, or have an aggregate.
In SQL Server, you would get the following error:
Msg 8120, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
Column 'Employees.LastName' is invalid in the select list because it is not contained
in either an aggregate function or the GROUP BY clause.

In MySQL, you would not get an error. However, you may not get the results you’re looking
for, since it will just by default apply a “Min” to the field.

43. Late orders vs. total orders

With LateOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders

83
 From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Group By
EmployeeID
)
, AllOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
)
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,AllOrders.TotalOrders as AllOrders
,LateOrders.TotalOrders as LateOrders
From Employees
Join AllOrders
on AllOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Join LateOrders
on LateOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Order by Employees.EmployeeID;

Discussion

The above query is almost correct, but if you're paying careful attention, you'll realize it has a
slight problem. We'll learn more in the next problem.

44. Late orders vs. total orders—missing employee

With LateOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate

84
 Group By
EmployeeID
)
, AllOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
)
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,AllOrders.TotalOrders as AllOrders
,LateOrders.TotalOrders as LateOrders
From Employees
Join AllOrders
on AllOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Left Join LateOrders
on LateOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID;

Discussion

The above SQL shows all employees who have made orders, even if they have no late orders.
What would we need to do if we wanted to show all employees, even if they have not been the
sales person (EmployeeID) for an Order?

45. Late orders vs. total orders—fix null

With LateOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Group By
EmployeeID
)
, AllOrders as (

85
 Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
)
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,AllOrders.TotalOrders as AllOrders
,IfNull(LateOrders.TotalOrders, 0) as LateOrders
From Employees
Join AllOrders
on AllOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Left Join LateOrders
on LateOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID;

Discussion

Using a straightforward IfNull on LateOrder is the best way to solve this problem.
Another way to write it would be using a Case statement
,Case
When LateOrders.TotalOrders is null Then 0
Else LateOrders.TotalOrders
End as LateOrders

But when you don’t need any other logic besides a test for null, IfNull is the way to go.

46. Late orders vs. total orders—percentage

With LateOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate
Group By

86
 EmployeeID
)
, AllOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
)
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,AllOrders.TotalOrders as AllOrders
,IfNull(LateOrders.TotalOrders, 0) as LateOrders
,IfNull(LateOrders.TotalOrders, 0)/ AllOrders.TotalOrders
as PercentLateOrders
From Employees
Join AllOrders
on AllOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Left Join LateOrders
on LateOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID;

Discussion

In MySQL, you can just divide LateOrders by AllOrders without a problem.

In some other database systems (such as SQL Server), you would need to explicitly convert
one of the fields to a decimal datatype, or implicitly convert them by multiplying by 1.0 in
order to get a decimal output.

47. Late orders vs. total orders—fix decimal

With LateOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Where
RequiredDate <= ShippedDate

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 Group By
EmployeeID
)
, AllOrders as (
Select
EmployeeID
,Count(*) as TotalOrders
From Orders
Group By
EmployeeID
)
Select
Employees.EmployeeID
,LastName
,AllOrders.TotalOrders as AllOrders
,IfNull(LateOrders.TotalOrders, 0) as LateOrders
,Cast(
IfNull(LateOrders.TotalOrders, 0)/ AllOrders.TotalOrders
as Decimal (4,2)
)
as PercentLateOrders
From Employees
Join AllOrders
on AllOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID
Left Join LateOrders
on LateOrders.EmployeeID = Employees.EmployeeID;

Discussion

Rounding, truncating, and converting data types can get complicated, and there are many ways
that you could get unexpected results. Always check your results carefully, and know whether
you want rounding, or truncation.
Frequently, when creating this kind of query, you’ll put the output into a tool like Excel, and
do any additional formatting such as setting the decimal precision there. However, it’s good to
at least know how to do it in SQL.
You may have noticed that I added multiple lines in the calculation to make it easier to read.
This isn’t necessary—you could put everything on one line—but it’s good programming
practice, and easier to read and troubleshoot.

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48. Customer grouping
with Orders2016 as (
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
)
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount
,Case
when TotalOrderAmount between 0 and 1000 then 'Low'
when TotalOrderAmount between 1001 and 5000 then 'Medium'
when TotalOrderAmount between 5001 and 10000 then 'High'
when TotalOrderAmount > 10000 then 'Very High'
End
as CustomerGroup
from Orders2016
Order by CustomerID;

Discussion

(Note—there's a small bug in the above SQL, which we'll review in the next problem.)
A CTE works well for this problem, but it's not strictly necessary. You could also use SQL like
this:

Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
,Case
when SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) between 0 and 1000 then 'Low'
when SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) between 1001 and 5000 then 'Medium'
when SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) between 5001 and 10000 then 'High'

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 when SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) > 10000 then 'Very High'
End as CustomerGroup
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group By
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName;

This gives the same result, but notice that the calculation for getting the TotalOrderAmount
was repeated 5 times, including the 4 times in the Case statement.
It's far better to avoid repeating calculations like this. The calculations will usually be quite
complex and difficult to read, and you want to have them only in one place. In something
simple, like Quantity * UnitPrice, it's not necessarily a problem. But most of the time, you
should avoid repeating any calculations and code. An easy way to remember this is with the
acronym DRY, which stands for “Don’t Repeat Yourself”.
Here’s an article on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

49. Customer grouping—fix null

with Orders2016 as (
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
)

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Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount
,Case
when TotalOrderAmount >= 0 and TotalOrderAmount < 1000
then 'Low'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 1000 and TotalOrderAmount < 5000
then 'Medium'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 5000 and TotalOrderAmount <10000
then 'High'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 10000
then 'Very High'
End as CustomerGroup
from Orders2016
Order by CustomerID;

Discussion

As you've been seeing in the above problems, knowing the data types you're working with and
understanding the differences between them is important to get the right results. Using
“between” would have been fine for integer values, but not for decimal.

50. Customer grouping with percentage

with Orders2016 as (
Select
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group By
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName

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)
,CustomerGrouping as (
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount
,Case
when TotalOrderAmount >= 0 and TotalOrderAmount < 1000
then 'Low'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 1000 and TotalOrderAmount < 5000
then 'Medium'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 5000 and TotalOrderAmount <10000
then 'High'
when TotalOrderAmount >= 10000
then 'Very High'
End
as CustomerGroup
from Orders2016
)
Select
CustomerGroup
,Count(*) as TotalInGroup
,Count(*)/(select count(*) from CustomerGrouping)
as PercentageInGroup
from CustomerGrouping
group by CustomerGroup
order by TotalInGroup desc;

Discussion

In the answer we added an intermediate CTE called CustomerGrouping. CustomerGrouping is

referenced twice—once to get the total number of customers in the specific group, and once to
get the total, as the denominator for the percentage.

51. Customer grouping—flexible

with Orders2016 as (
Select
Customers.CustomerID

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 ,Customers.CompanyName
,SUM(Quantity * UnitPrice) as TotalOrderAmount
From Customers
Join Orders
on Orders.CustomerID = Customers.CustomerID
Join OrderDetails
on Orders.OrderID = OrderDetails.OrderID
Where
OrderDate >= '2016-01-01'
and OrderDate < '2017-01-01'
Group by
Customers.CustomerID
,Customers.CompanyName
)
Select
CustomerID
,CompanyName
,TotalOrderAmount
,CustomerGroupName
from Orders2016
Join CustomerGroupThresholds
on Orders2016.TotalOrderAmount between
CustomerGroupThresholds.RangeBottom
and CustomerGroupThresholds.RangeTop
Order by CustomerID;

Discussion

Note that this gives the same results as the original problem. However, instead of using hard-
coded values in the Case statement to define the boundaries of the CustomerGroups, you have
them in a table.
The benefit of this is that you can just reference the table, instead of duplicating a complex
Case statement, in every query where you want to group customers the same way.
Also, take a look at the values in CustomerGroupThresholds.

select * From CustomerGroupThresholds

Note that there's no overlap between the rows when you look at RangeBottom and RangeTop,
so you can use “between”. You need to be careful with this, and pay attention to how many
digits there are to the right of the decimal, to make sure there are no potential values that could
be missed.

93
52. Countries with suppliers or customers
Select Country From Customers
Union
Select Country From Suppliers
Order by Country;

Discussion

There are 2 ways of using the Union statement. One is a simple Union as in the answer here.
Using a simple Union statement eliminates all the duplicates in the resultset.

You can also use Union All. Try it and take a look at the resultset:

Select distinct Country From Customers

Union All
Select distinct Country From Suppliers
Order by Country;

Notice that within the individual SQL statements, I’ve put a Distinct. However, there are still
duplicates in the final output, because we have Union All, which does not eliminate duplicates.

53. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 2

With AllCountries as
(Select Country from Suppliers
Union
Select Country from Customers
)
,SupplierCountries as
(Select Distinct Country from Suppliers)
,CustomerCountries as
(Select Distinct Country from Customers)
Select
SupplierCountries.Country as SupplierCountry
,CustomerCountries.Country as CustomerCountry
From AllCountries
Left Join CustomerCountries
on AllCountries.Country = CustomerCountries.Country

94
 Left Join SupplierCountries
on AllCountries.Country = SupplierCountries.Country
Order by AllCountries.Country;

Discussion

If you just joined from the AllCountries CTE directly to the Suppliers table and the Customers
table (without doing an intermediate CTE that does a Distinct), what would happen?
Here’s an alternate way of writing the query, which returns the same results. It uses derived
tables instead of CTEs.
Select
SupplierCountries.Country as SupplierCountry
,CustomerCountries.Country as CustomerCountry
From
(Select Country from Suppliers
Union
Select Country from Customers)
AllCountries
Left Join (Select Distinct Country from Suppliers)
CustomerCountries
on AllCountries.Country = CustomerCountries.Country
Left Join (Select Distinct Country from Suppliers)
SupplierCountries
on AllCountries.Country = SupplierCountries.Country
Order by AllCountries.Country;

54. Countries with suppliers or customers, version 3

With AllCountries as
(Select Country from Suppliers
Union
Select Country from Customers
)
,SupplierCountries as
(Select Country, count(*) as Total from Suppliers Group by Country)
,CustomerCountries as
(Select Country, count(*) as Total from Customers Group by Country)
Select
AllCountries.Country

95
 ,IfNull(SupplierCountries.Total,0) as TotalSuppliers
,IfNull(CustomerCountries.Total,0) as TotalCustomers
From AllCountries
Left Join CustomerCountries
on AllCountries.Country = CustomerCountries.Country
Left Join SupplierCountries
on AllCountries.Country = SupplierCountries.Country
Order by AllCountries.Country;

Discussion

Note that we had to switch from Distinct to Group By in the CTE, because we needed to get
the total with Count(*). You can’t use Distinct in this situation.

55. First order in each country

with OrdersByCountry as (
Select
ShipCountry
,CustomerID
,OrderID
,Date(OrderDate) as OrderDate
,Row_Number()
over (Partition by ShipCountry Order by ShipCountry, OrderID)
as RowNumberPerCountry
From Orders
)
Select
ShipCountry
,CustomerID
,OrderID
,OrderDate
From OrdersByCountry
Where
RowNumberPerCountry = 1
Order by
ShipCountry;

96
Discussion

In previous versions of MySQL, before Window functions were available, there were other
options to get the same results. However, they were much more difficult to write.
Having the Window functions (Row_Number() plus many others) makes it much easier to get
some very useful information.

56. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period

Select
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrder.OrderID as InitialOrderID
,Date(InitialOrder.OrderDate) as InitialOrderDate
,NextOrder.OrderID as NextOrderID
,Date(NextOrder.OrderDate) as NextOrderDate
,DateDiff(NextOrder.OrderDate, InitialOrder.OrderDate)
as DaysBetweenOrders
from Orders InitialOrder
join Orders NextOrder
on InitialOrder.CustomerID = NextOrder.CustomerID
where
InitialOrder.OrderID < NextOrder.OrderID
and DateDiff(NextOrder.OrderDate, InitialOrder.OrderDate) <= 5
Order by
InitialOrder.CustomerID
,InitialOrder.OrderID;

Discussion

Including multiple instances of a table is one way of finding the answer we need.
When aliasing tables and columns, be careful to name them something meaningful, so you can
read and understand your SQL.

97
57. Customers with multiple orders in 5 day period, version 2
With NextOrderDate as (
Select
CustomerID
,Date(OrderDate) as InitialOrderDate
,Date(Lead(OrderDate,1)
OVER (Partition by CustomerID order by CustomerID, OrderDate)
) as NextOrderDate
From Orders
)
Select
CustomerID
,InitialOrderDate
,NextOrderDate
,DateDiff (NextOrderDate, InitialOrderDate) as DaysBetweenOrders
From NextOrderDate
Where
DateDiff (NextOrderDate, InitialOrderDate ) <= 5;

Discussion

There’s two main ways of solving this problem, the first using multiple instances of the table
(which we did in the first version of the problem), and the other using Window functions.
Which is better? If we’re okay with getting a narrower resultset, I’d prefer this version, using
the Lead window function, instead of the previous solution.
But if we need multiple columns from the following order, then it’s best to use the first
version. Otherwise, you’d need multiple calculated columns with the same Partition and Order
by.
Notice that the row count between the 2 answers are slightly different, 71 and 69. One of the
customers that causes this discrepancy is CustomerID ERNSH. Look at the results of the
answer SQL from problem # 56. Why would one OrderID show up twice?

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 Congratulations!

You’re finished! Now that you’ve completed the practice problems, you’ve improved your
SQL skills tremendously, and increased your ability in a skill that’s in enormous demand.

If you have a moment, I would really appreciate a review of this book on Amazon. Your
honest opinion can help people decide between the many SQL learning options available.

Any comments and suggestions are most welcome! Please email me at:
feedback@SQLPracticeProblems.com.

Thank you!
Sylvia Moestl Vasilik

99