Find unique number of days

Question

I wish to write a SQL query to find the number of unique working days for each employee from table times.

*---------------------------------------*
|emp_id  task_id  start_day   end_day   |
*---------------------------------------*
|  1        1     'monday'  'wednesday' |
|  1        2     'monday'  'tuesday'   |
|  1        3     'friday'  'friday'    |
|  2        1     'monday'  'friday'    |
|  2        1     'tuesday' 'wednesday' |
*---------------------------------------*

Expected output:

*-------------------*
|emp_id  no_of_days |
*-------------------*
|  1        4       |
|  2        5       |
*-------------------*

I have written the query sqlfiddle which is giving me the expected output but for curiosity is there a better way to write this query? Can I use Calender or Tally table?

with days_num as  
(
  select
    *,
    case 
      when start_day = 'monday' then 1
      when start_day = 'tuesday' then 2
      when start_day = 'wednesday' then 3
      when start_day = 'thursday' then 4
      when start_day = 'friday' then 5
    end as start_day_num,

    case 
      when end_day = 'monday' then 1
      when end_day = 'tuesday' then 2
      when end_day = 'wednesday' then 3
      when end_day = 'thursday' then 4
      when end_day = 'friday' then 5
    end as end_day_num

  from times
),
day_diff as
(
  select
    emp_id,
    case
      when  
        (end_day_num - start_day_num) = 0
      then
        1
      else
        (end_day_num - start_day_num)
    end as total_diff
  from days_num  
)

select emp_id,
  sum(total_diff) as uniq_working_days
from day_diff
group by
  emp_id

Any suggestions would be great.

Answer 1

with cte as 
(Select id, start_day as day
   group by id, start_day
 union 
 Select id, end_day as day
   group by id, end_day
)

select id, count(day)
from cte
group by id

Answer 2

One possible approach to simplify the statement in the question(fiddle), is to use VALUES table value constructor and appropriate joins:

SELECT 
   t.emp_id,
   SUM(CASE 
      WHEN d1.day_no = d2.day_no THEN 1
      ELSE d2.day_no - d1.day_no
   END) AS no_of_days
FROM times t
JOIN (VALUES ('monday', 1), ('tuesday', 2), ('wednesday', 3), ('thursday', 4), ('friday', 5)) d1 (day, day_no) 
   ON t.start_day = d1.day
JOIN (VALUES ('monday', 1), ('tuesday', 2), ('wednesday', 3), ('thursday', 4), ('friday', 5)) d2 (day, day_no) 
   ON t.end_day = d2.day
GROUP BY t.emp_id

But if you want to count the distinct days, the statement is different. You need to find all days between the start_day and end_day range and count the distinct days:

;WITH daysCTE (day, day_no) AS (
   SELECT 'monday', 1 UNION ALL
   SELECT 'tuesday', 2 UNION ALL
   SELECT 'wednesday', 3 UNION ALL
   SELECT 'thursday', 4 UNION ALL
   SELECT 'friday', 5 
)
SELECT t.emp_id, COUNT(DISTINCT d3.day_no)
FROM times t
JOIN daysCTE d1 ON t.start_day = d1.day
JOIN daysCTE d2 ON t.end_day = d2.day
JOIN daysCTE d3 ON d3.day_no BETWEEN d1.day_no AND d2.day_no
GROUP BY t.emp_id

Answer 3

You need to basically find the intersection of the days worked by each emp_id on each task with all the days of the week, and then count the distinct days:

with days_num as (
  SELECT *
  FROM (
    VALUES ('monday', 1), ('tuesday', 2), ('wednesday', 3), ('thursday', 4), ('friday', 5)
  ) AS d (day, day_no)
),
emp_day_nums as (
  select emp_id, d1.day_no AS start_day_no, d2.day_no AS end_day_no
  from times t
  join days_num d1 on d1.day = t.start_day
  join days_num d2 on d2.day = t.end_day
)
select emp_id, count(distinct d.day_no) AS distinct_days
from emp_day_nums e
join days_num d on d.day_no between e.start_day_no and e.end_day_no
group by emp_id

Output:

emp_id  distinct_days
1       4
2       5

Demo on SQLFiddle