MERGE Source Options

A MERGE operation joins the target table to one of the following data sources:

• Another table
• View
• Subquery result set

Merging from Table and View Data

You merge data from one table into another as follows:

MERGE INTO target‑table USING { source‑table | source‑view } join-condition 
   matching‑clause[ matching‑clause ]

If you specify a view, Vertica expands the view name to the query that it encapsulates, and uses the result set as the merge source data.

For example, the VMart table public.product_dimension contains current and discontinued products. You can move all discontinued products into a separate table public.product_dimension_discontinued, as follows:

=> CREATE TABLE public.product_dimension_discontinued (
     product_key int, 
     product_version int, 
     sku_number char(32), 
     category_description char(32), 
     product_description varchar(128));

=> MERGE INTO product_dimension_discontinued tgt
     USING product_dimension src ON tgt.product_key = src.product_key 
                                AND tgt.product_version = src.product_version
     WHEN NOT MATCHED AND src.discontinued_flag='1' THEN INSERT VALUES
       (src.product_key,
        src.product_version, 
        src.sku_number, 
        src.category_description, 
        src.product_description);
 OUTPUT
--------
   1186
(1 row)

Source table product_dimension uses two columns, product_key and product_version, to identify unique products. The MERGE statement joins the source and target tables on these columns in order to return single instances of non-matching rows. The WHEN NOT MATCHED clause includes a filter (src.discontinued_flag='1'), which reduces the result set to include only discontinued products. The remaining rows are inserted into target table product_dimension_discontinued.

Merging from a Subquery Result Set

You can merge into a table the result set that is returned by a subquery, as follows:

MERGE INTO target‑table USING (subquery) sq-alias join-condition 
   matching‑clause[ matching‑clause ]

For example, the VMart table public.product_dimension is defined as follows (DDL truncated):

CREATE TABLE public.product_dimension
(
    product_key int NOT NULL,
    product_version int NOT NULL,
    product_description varchar(128),
    sku_number char(32),
    ...
)
ALTER TABLE public.product_dimension 
    ADD CONSTRAINT C_PRIMARY PRIMARY KEY (product_key, product_version) DISABLED;

Columns product_key and product_version comprise the table's primary key. You can modify this table so it contains a single column that concatenates the values of these two columns. This column can be used to uniquely identify each product, while also maintaining the original values from product_key and product_version.

You populate the new column with a MERGE statement that queries the other two columns:

=> ALTER TABLE public.product_dimension ADD COLUMN product_ID numeric(8,2);
ALTER TABLE

=> MERGE INTO product_dimension tgt
     USING (SELECT (product_key||'.0'||product_version)::numeric(8,2) AS pid, sku_number
     FROM product_dimension) src
     ON tgt.product_key||'.0'||product_version::numeric=src.pid
     WHEN MATCHED THEN UPDATE SET product_ID = src.pid;
 OUTPUT
--------
  60000
(1 row)

The following query verifies that the new column values correspond to the values in product_key and product_version:

=> SELECT product_ID, product_key, product_version, product_description 
   FROM product_dimension
   WHERE category_description = 'Medical' 
     AND product_description ILIKE '%diabetes%' 
     AND discontinued_flag = 1 ORDER BY product_ID;
 product_ID | product_key | product_version |           product_description
------------+-------------+-----------------+-----------------------------------------
    5836.02 |        5836 |               2 | Brand #17487 diabetes blood testing kit
   14320.02 |       14320 |               2 | Brand #43046 diabetes blood testing kit
   18881.01 |       18881 |               1 | Brand #56743 diabetes blood testing kit
(3 rows)