Question

using MSQL 2005

I have a continuous set of flow measurements (averaged for each 15 minute time slice)

I am trying to write a query to find the minimum flow for each day and the time it occurs
Finding the minimum flow is easy but getting the time is harder.

Currently I do this:

select d1.data_point_groupid
     , min(d1.timeID) [timeId]
     , min(d1.[value]) [value] 
from dma.dbo.calculated_average_group_flow d1
where night=1 and round(d1.value, 6)=
(
    select round(min(value), 6)
     from dma.dbo.calculated_average_group_flow d2
     where night=1
        and d2.[date]=d1.[date]
        and d2.data_point_groupid=d1.data_point_groupid
)
group by d1.data_point_groupid, d1.date

However this will occasionally not match due to rounding errors

I have also tried using ranking but this is so slow I had to cancel the query

select [data_Point_GroupID], [date], [timeId], [value] from
    (
    select * , Rank() over (Partition BY data_Point_GroupID, [date] order by value ASC) as Rank
    from 
    [calculated_average_group_flow] d2
    ) d1
 WHERE rank=1

The calculated_average_group_flow is another view that does the averaging calculations

Is there a better way to do this?

Answer 1

When comparing floating point, you need to use an epsilon (I used 1e-9 below) to avoid precision errors:

select d1.data_point_groupid
     , min(d1.timeID) [timeId]
     , min(d1.[value]) [value] 
from dma.dbo.calculated_average_group_flow d1
where night=1 and 1e-9 >=
(
    select abs(d1.value - min(d2.value))
     from dma.dbo.calculated_average_group_flow d2
     where night=1
        and d2.[date]=d1.[date]
        and d2.data_point_groupid=d1.data_point_groupid
)
group by d1.data_point_groupid, d1.date