Unnest and Sequence in Presto SQL

Unnest Sequence in Presto SQL helps you to create a sequence of numbers, dates, etc. as a table and then to use that table. Unnest and sequence are two different functions but when used in a combination it can be very useful

Where to use Unnest and Sequence in Presto?
Suppose, you have a table where you store restaurant id, revenue, and date. Now, there are chances that some restaurants are not functional on a particular date, but in your query, you need to get the total number of restaurants functional(not operational) on a particular day.

This is a standard real-life problem, basically, you need to have a calendar table in your database where you have only dates. With this date column, you will do a cross join on the restaurant table. Now, you will have all the dates for each restaurant. All, you need to do now is to take up the count distinct of the hotel_ids for a particular day.

Sample SQL code to create a sequence

select x
from unnest(sequence(date ‘2020-01-01’, date ‘2022-03-31’)) t(x)

The above command will create a column x with values starting from 2020 till 31st March 2022. Actually, the sequence will create the data in one row, and unnest will explode that row.

Sequence command
sequence (start, stop, step)
In the sequence function, you can also add steps like below

select x
from unnest(sequence(date ‘2020-01-01’, date ‘2022-03-31’, Interval ‘2’ day)) t(x)

The above code will create the column x for dates separated by 2 days.

SELECT x FROM UNNEST(sequence(200, 120, -3)) t(x)

Sample code to plug it into your report

select t.id,s.dt
from mytable t
cross join unnest(sequence(date(t.start_dt), date(t.end_dt))) as s(dt)

Now, here you took the column id and did a cross join on the sequence date column. This will result in creating two columns i.e. id and all the dates

This is a simple concept but is asked as a part of a larger problem in an interview.

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