Pivot table with Oracle SQL

Often, we store data in a normalized way in our database, perhaps something that resembles key-value pairs. To illustrate, let us see the following table, which describes properties of computers.

select comp_id, comp_property, comp_property_value from schema1.comp_properties;


COMP_ID COMP_PROPERTY COMP_PROPERTY_VALUE
------- ------------- -------------------
1       hostname      comp1
1       ipaddress     192.168.0.1
1       os            Windows XP SP2
1       hdd1          60gb
1       hdd2          500gb
2       hostname      comp2
2       ipaddress     192.168.0.2
2       os            MacOS 10.5
2       hdd1          80gb
3       hostname      comp3
3       os            Ubuntu Linux 7.10

In this particular case, we can see that the three computers have different properties. While in this example of three computers we can see the information easily, we can also imagine that it will become cumbersome if we are managing 100 computers instead of only three. Thus, a pivot table type of presentation would be much more useful.

To rewrite the SQL statement to present the same data in a pivot table manner, we can do the following.

create or replace schema1.v_comp_properties
select comp_id, hostname, ipaddress, os, hdd1, hdd2
from (
	select comp_id,
	max(case when comp_property='hostname' then comp_property_value else null end) as hostname,
	max(case when comp_property='ipaddress' then comp_property_value else null end) as ipaddress,
	max(case when comp_property='os' then comp_property_value else null end) as os,
	max(case when comp_property='hdd1' then comp_property_value else null end) as hdd1,
	max(case when comp_property='hdd2' then comp_property_value else null end) as hdd2
	from schema1.comp_properties
	group by comp_id
);

The result should look like the following.

select comp_id, hostname, ipaddress, os, hdd1, hdd2 from schema1.v_comp_properties;

COMP_ID HOSTNAME IPADDRESS   OS                HDD1 HDD2
------- -------- ----------- ----------------- ---- -----
1       comp1    192.168.0.1 Windows XP SP2    60gb 500gb
2       comp2    192.168.0.2 MacOS 10.5        80gb
3       comp3    192.168.0.3 Ubuntu Linux 7.10

With this pivot table, we will be able to see all properties of each computer on each row easily, while still maintain a normalized database design.