/lab-mysql-select

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Lab | MySQL Select

Introduction

In this lab you will practice how to use the MySQL SELECT statement which will be extremely useful in your future work as a data analyst/scientist/engineer. You will use the publications database. You can find it in Ironhack's database. Use your database management application to query publications.

You will create a solutions.sql file in the your-code directory to record your solutions to all challenges.

You can explore your database and table on your own, but here's a quicker view of how the DB is modeled:

Relational schema

Challenge 1 - Who Have Published What At Where?

In this challenge you will write a MySQL SELECT query that joins various tables to figure out what titles each author has published at which publishers. Your output should have at least the following columns:

  • AUTHOR ID - the ID of the author
  • LAST NAME - author last name
  • FIRST NAME - author first name
  • TITLE - name of the published title
  • PUBLISHER - name of the publisher where the title was published

Your output will look something like below:

Challenge 1 output

Note: the screenshot above is not the complete output.

If your query is correct, the total rows in your output should be the same as the total number of records in Table titleauthor.

Challenge 2 - Who Have Published How Many At Where?

Elevating from your solution in Challenge 1, query how many titles each author has published at each publisher. Your output should look something like below:

Challenge 2 output

Note: the screenshot above is not the complete output.

To check if your output is correct, sum up the TITLE COUNT column. The sum number should be the same as the total number of records in Table titleauthor.

Hint: In order to count the number of titles published by an author, you need to use MySQL COUNT. Also check out MySQL Group By because you will count the rows of different groups of data. Refer to the references and learn by yourself. These features will be formally discussed in the Temp Tables and Subqueries lesson.

Challenge 3 - Best Selling Authors

Who are the top 3 authors who have sold the highest number of titles? Write a query to find out.

Requirements:

  • Your output should have the following columns:
    • AUTHOR ID - the ID of the author
    • LAST NAME - author last name
    • FIRST NAME - author first name
    • TOTAL - total number of titles sold from this author
  • Your output should be ordered based on TOTAL from high to low.
  • Only output the top 3 best selling authors.

Challenge 4 - Best Selling Authors Ranking

Now modify your solution in Challenge 3 so that the output will display all 23 authors instead of the top 3. Note that the authors who have sold 0 titles should also appear in your output (ideally display 0 instead of NULL as the TOTAL). Also order your results based on TOTAL from high to low.

Deliverables

  • solution.sql that contains all your MySQL queries.

Submission

  • Add solutions.sql to git.
  • Commit your code.
  • Push to your fork.
  • Create a pull request to the class repo.

References

MySQL Reference: Counting Rows

MySQL Reference: Group By

MySQL Reference: SUM Function