Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.
Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
Why would someone want to convert columns into rows (ie pivoting)? Which problem does it solve?
I found some links, but did not get satisfactory answers to the questions.
http://codeghar.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/pivot-tables/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177410%28SQL.105%29.aspx
Usually, it’s because the layout works better in a report, or user interface after pivoting.
Data on a normalized database may result in data in the “shape” of multiple records, where the UI wants to see those records as fields. Data normalization is great, but when it comes to representing data in a concise, natural format, pivoting is often necessary.
example here.
Granted, the example I linked to is Excel, not a true DB, but the pictures describe an example of where the pivoted data looks more natural, and the concept is the same.