Using only the native JSON fuctions (no PHP, etc) in MySQL version 5.7.12 (section 13.16 in the manual) I am trying to write a query to generate a JSON document from relational tables that contains a sub object. Given the following example:
CREATE TABLE `parent_table` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`desc` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
);
CREATE TABLE `child_table` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`parent_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`desc` varchar(20) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`,`parent_id`)
);
insert `parent_table` values (1,'parent row 1');
insert `child_table` values (1,1,'child row 1');
insert `child_table` values (2,1,'child row 2');
I am trying to generate a JSON document that looks like this:
[{
"id" : 1,
"desc" : "parent row 1",
"child_objects" : [{
"id" : 1,
"parent_id" : 1,
"desc" : "child row 1"
}, {
"id" : 2,
"parent_id" : 1,
"desc" : "child row 2"
}
]
}]
I am new to MySQL and suspect there is a SQL pattern for generating nested JSON objects from one to many relationships but I'm having trouble finding it.
In Microsoft SQL (which I'm more familiar with) the following works:
select
[p].[id]
,[p].[desc]
,(select * from [dbo].[child_table] where [parent_id] = [p].[id] for json auto) AS [child_objects]
from [dbo].[parent_table] [p]
for json path
I attempted to write the equivalent in MySQL as follows:
select json_object(
'id',p.id
,'desc',p.`desc`
,'child_objects',(select json_object('id',id,'parent_id',parent_id,'desc',`desc`)
from child_table where parent_id = p.id)
)
from parent_table p;
select json_object(
'id',p.id
,'desc',p.`desc`
,'child_objects',json_array((select json_object('id',id,'parent_id',parent_id,'desc',`desc`)
from child_table where parent_id = p.id))
)
from parent_table p
Both attempts fail with the following error:
Error Code: 1242. Subquery returns more than 1 row
Objects can be nested inside other objects. Each nested object must have a unique access path. The same field name can occur in nested objects in the same document.
JSON has been supported by MySQL since version 5.7. 8. MySQL stores JSON in binary form, like PostgreSQL's JSONB format. This means that the JSON is always validated, because it's always parsed, and it's efficiently accessed as it's optimized into keys with values and arrays.
In MySQL, the JSON_EXTRACT() function returns data from a JSON document. The actual data returned is determined by the path you provide as an argument. You provide the JSON document as the first argument, followed by the path of the data to return.
The reason you are getting these errors is that the parent json object is not expecting a result set as one of its inputs, you need to have simple object pairs like {name, string} etc bug report - may be available in future functionality... this just means that you need to convert your multi row results into a concatination of results separated by commas and then converted into a json array.
You almost had it with your second example.
You can achieve what you are after with the GROUP_CONCAT function
select json_object(
'id',p.id
,'desc',p.`desc`
,'child_objects',json_array(
(select GROUP_CONCAT(
json_object('id',id,'parent_id',parent_id,'desc',`desc`)
)
from child_table
where parent_id = p.id))
)
from parent_table p;
This almost works, it ends up treating the subquery as a string which leaves the escape characters in there.
'{\"id\": 1,
\"desc\": \"parent row 1\",
\"child_objects\":
[\"
{\\\"id\\\": 1,
\\\"desc\\\": \\\"child row 1\\\",
\\\"parent_id\\\": 1
},
{\\\"id\\\": 2,
\\\"desc\\\": \\\"child row 2\\\",
\\\"parent_id\\\": 1}\"
]
}'
In order to get this working in an appropriate format, you need to change the way you create the JSON output as follows:
select json_object(
'id',p.id
,'desc',p.`desc`
,'child_objects',(select CAST(CONCAT('[',
GROUP_CONCAT(
JSON_OBJECT(
'id',id,'parent_id',parent_id,'desc',`desc`)),
']')
AS JSON) from child_table where parent_id = p.id)
) from parent_table p;
This will give you the exact result you require:
'{\"id\": 1,
\"desc\": \"parent row 1\",
\"child_objects\":
[{\"id\": 1,
\"desc\": \"child row 1\",
\"parent_id\": 1
},
{\"id\": 2,
\"desc\": \"child row 2\",
\"parent_id\": 1
}]
}'
For MariaDb, CAST AS JSON does not work. But JSON_EXTRACT may be used to convert a string to a JSON object:
select json_object(
'id',p.id
,'desc',p.`desc`
,'child_objects',JSON_EXTRACT(IFNULL((select
CONCAT('[',GROUP_CONCAT(
json_object('id',id,'parent_id',parent_id,'desc',`desc`)
),']')
from child_table where parent_id = p.id),'[]'),'$')
) from parent_table p;
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