Date Range Intersection Splitting in SQL - sql-server

Question

I have a SQL Server 2005 database which contains a table called Memberships.
The table schema is:
PersonID int, Surname nvarchar(30), FirstName nvarchar(30), Description nvarchar(100), StartDate datetime, EndDate datetime
I'm currently working on a grid feature which shows a break-down of memberships by person. One of the requirements is to split membership rows where there is an intersection of date ranges. The intersection must be bound by the Surname and FirstName, ie splits only occur with membership records of the same Surname and FirstName.
Example table data:
18 Smith John Poker Club 01/01/2009 NULL
18 Smith John Library 05/01/2009 18/01/2009
18 Smith John Gym 10/01/2009 28/01/2009
26 Adams Jane Pilates 03/01/2009 16/02/2009
Expected result set:
18 Smith John Poker Club 01/01/2009 04/01/2009
18 Smith John Poker Club / Library 05/01/2009 09/01/2009
18 Smith John Poker Club / Library / Gym 10/01/2009 18/01/2009
18 Smith John Poker Club / Gym 19/01/2009 28/01/2009
18 Smith John Poker Club 29/01/2009 NULL
26 Adams Jane Pilates 03/01/2009 16/02/2009
Does anyone have any idea how I could write a stored procedure that will return a result set which has the break-down described above.

Answer 1

The problem you are going to have with this problem is that as the data set grows, the solutions to solve it with TSQL won't scale well. The below uses a series of temporary tables built on the fly to solve the problem. It splits each date range entry into its respective days using a numbers table. This is where it won't scale, primarily due to your open ranged NULL values which appear to be inifinity, so you have to swap in a fixed date far into the future that limits the range of conversion to a feasible length of time. You could likely see better performance by building a table of days or a calendar table with appropriate indexing for optimized rendering of each day.
Once the ranges are split, the descriptions are merged using XML PATH so that each day in the range series has all of the descriptions listed for it. Row Numbering by PersonID and Date allows for the first and last row of each range to be found using two NOT EXISTS checks to find instances where a previous row doesn't exist for a matching PersonID and Description set, or where the next row doesn't exist for a matching PersonID and Description set.
This result set is then renumbered using ROW_NUMBER so that they can be paired up to build the final results.
/*
SET DATEFORMAT dmy
USE tempdb;
GO
CREATE TABLE Schedule
( PersonID int,
Surname nvarchar(30),
FirstName nvarchar(30),
Description nvarchar(100),
StartDate datetime,
EndDate datetime)
GO
INSERT INTO Schedule VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John', 'Poker Club', '01/01/2009', NULL)
INSERT INTO Schedule VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John', 'Library', '05/01/2009', '18/01/2009')
INSERT INTO Schedule VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John', 'Gym', '10/01/2009', '28/01/2009')
INSERT INTO Schedule VALUES (26, 'Adams', 'Jane', 'Pilates', '03/01/2009', '16/02/2009')
GO
*/
SELECT
PersonID,
Description,
theDate
INTO #SplitRanges
FROM Schedule, (SELECT DATEADD(dd, number, '01/01/2008') AS theDate
FROM master..spt_values
WHERE type = N'P') AS DayTab
WHERE theDate >= StartDate
AND theDate <= isnull(EndDate, '31/12/2012')
SELECT
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY PersonID, theDate) AS rowid,
PersonID,
theDate,
STUFF((
SELECT '/' + Description
FROM #SplitRanges AS s
WHERE s.PersonID = sr.PersonID
AND s.theDate = sr.theDate
FOR XML PATH('')
), 1, 1,'') AS Descriptions
INTO #MergedDescriptions
FROM #SplitRanges AS sr
GROUP BY PersonID, theDate
SELECT
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY PersonID, theDate) AS ID,
*
INTO #InterimResults
FROM
(
SELECT *
FROM #MergedDescriptions AS t1
WHERE NOT EXISTS
(SELECT 1
FROM #MergedDescriptions AS t2
WHERE t1.PersonID = t2.PersonID
AND t1.RowID - 1 = t2.RowID
AND t1.Descriptions = t2.Descriptions)
UNION ALL
SELECT *
FROM #MergedDescriptions AS t1
WHERE NOT EXISTS
(SELECT 1
FROM #MergedDescriptions AS t2
WHERE t1.PersonID = t2.PersonID
AND t1.RowID = t2.RowID - 1
AND t1.Descriptions = t2.Descriptions)
) AS t
SELECT DISTINCT
PersonID,
Surname,
FirstName
INTO #DistinctPerson
FROM Schedule
SELECT
t1.PersonID,
dp.Surname,
dp.FirstName,
t1.Descriptions,
t1.theDate AS StartDate,
CASE
WHEN t2.theDate = '31/12/2012' THEN NULL
ELSE t2.theDate
END AS EndDate
FROM #DistinctPerson AS dp
JOIN #InterimResults AS t1
ON t1.PersonID = dp.PersonID
JOIN #InterimResults AS t2
ON t2.PersonID = t1.PersonID
AND t1.ID + 1 = t2.ID
AND t1.Descriptions = t2.Descriptions
DROP TABLE #SplitRanges
DROP TABLE #MergedDescriptions
DROP TABLE #DistinctPerson
DROP TABLE #InterimResults
/*
DROP TABLE Schedule
*/
The above solution will also handle gaps between additional Descriptions as well, so if you were to add another Description for PersonID 18 leaving a gap:
INSERT INTO Schedule VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John', 'Gym', '10/02/2009', '28/02/2009')
It will fill the gap appropriately. As pointed out in the comments, you shouldn't have name information in this table, it should be normalized out to a Persons Table that can be JOIN'd to in the final result. I simulated this other table by using a SELECT DISTINCT to build a temp table to create that JOIN.

Answer 2

Try this
SET DATEFORMAT dmy
DECLARE #Membership TABLE(
PersonID int,
Surname nvarchar(16),
FirstName nvarchar(16),
Description nvarchar(16),
StartDate datetime,
EndDate datetime)
INSERT INTO #Membership VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John', 'Poker Club', '01/01/2009', NULL)
INSERT INTO #Membership VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John','Library', '05/01/2009', '18/01/2009')
INSERT INTO #Membership VALUES (18, 'Smith', 'John','Gym', '10/01/2009', '28/01/2009')
INSERT INTO #Membership VALUES (26, 'Adams', 'Jane','Pilates', '03/01/2009', '16/02/2009')
--Program Starts
declare #enddate datetime
--Measuring extreme condition when all the enddates are null(i.e. all the memberships for all members are in progress)
-- in such a case taking any arbitary date e.g. '31/12/2009' here else add 1 more day to the highest enddate
select #enddate = case when max(enddate) is null then '31/12/2009' else max(enddate) + 1 end from #Membership
--Fill the null enddates
; with fillNullEndDates_cte as
(
select
row_number() over(partition by PersonId order by PersonId) RowNum
,PersonId
,Surname
,FirstName
,Description
,StartDate
,isnull(EndDate,#enddate) EndDate
from #Membership
)
--Generate a date calender
, generateCalender_cte as
(
select
1 as CalenderRows
,min(startdate) DateValue
from #Membership
union all
select
CalenderRows+1
,DateValue + 1
from generateCalender_cte
where DateValue + 1 <= #enddate
)
--Generate Missing Dates based on Membership
,datesBasedOnMemberships_cte as
(
select
t.RowNum
,t.PersonId
,t.Surname
,t.FirstName
,t.Description
, d.DateValue
,d.CalenderRows
from generateCalender_cte d
join fillNullEndDates_cte t ON d.DateValue between t.startdate and t.enddate
)
--Generate Dscription Based On Membership Dates
, descriptionBasedOnMembershipDates_cte as
(
select
PersonID
,Surname
,FirstName
,stuff((
select '/' + Description
from datesBasedOnMemberships_cte d1
where d1.PersonID = d2.PersonID
and d1.DateValue = d2.DateValue
for xml path('')
), 1, 1,'') as Description
, DateValue
,CalenderRows
from datesBasedOnMemberships_cte d2
group by PersonID, Surname,FirstName,DateValue,CalenderRows
)
--Grouping based on membership dates
,groupByMembershipDates_cte as
(
select d.*,
CalenderRows - row_number() over(partition by Description order by PersonID, DateValue) AS [Group]
from descriptionBasedOnMembershipDates_cte d
)
select PersonId
,Surname
,FirstName
,Description
,convert(varchar(10), convert(datetime, min(DateValue)), 103) as StartDate
,case when max(DateValue)= #enddate then null else convert(varchar(10), convert(datetime, max(DateValue)), 103) end as EndDate
from groupByMembershipDates_cte
group by [Group],PersonId,Surname,FirstName,Description
order by PersonId,StartDate
option(maxrecursion 0)

Answer 3

[Only many, many years later.]
I created a stored procedure that will align and break segments by a partition within a single table, and then you can use those aligned breaks to pivot the description into a ragged column using a subquery and XML PATH.
See if the below help:
Documentation: https://github.com/Quebe/SQL-Algorithms/blob/master/Temporal/Date%20Segment%20Manipulation/DateSegments_AlignWithinTable.md
Stored Procedure: https://github.com/Quebe/SQL-Algorithms/blob/master/Temporal/Date%20Segment%20Manipulation/DateSegments_AlignWithinTable.sql
For example, your call might look like:
EXEC dbo.DateSegments_AlignWithinTable
#tableName = 'tableName',
#keyFieldList = 'PersonID',
#nonKeyFieldList = 'Description',
#effectivveDateFieldName = 'StartDate',
#terminationDateFieldName = 'EndDate'
You will want to capture the result (which is a table) into another table or temporary table (assuming it is called "AlignedDataTable" in below example). Then, you can pivot using a subquery.
SELECT
PersonID, StartDate, EndDate,
SUBSTRING ((SELECT ',' + [Description] FROM AlignedDataTable AS innerTable
WHERE
innerTable.PersonID = AlignedDataTable.PersonID
AND (innerTable.StartDate = AlignedDataTable.StartDate)
AND (innerTable.EndDate = AlignedDataTable.EndDate)
ORDER BY id
FOR XML PATH ('')), 2, 999999999999999) AS IdList
FROM AlignedDataTable
GROUP BY PersonID, StartDate, EndDate
ORDER BY PersonID, StartDate