DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Data Engineering
  3. Databases
  4. Error in PostgreSQL: Argument of WHERE Must Not Return a Set

Error in PostgreSQL: Argument of WHERE Must Not Return a Set

A query that I initially wrote didn't work since jsonb_array_elements returns a set of boolean values. Instead, we can use a LATERAL subquery to achieve our goal.

Mark Needham user avatar by
Mark Needham
·
May. 06, 17 · Opinion
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
Share
6.87K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

In my last post, I showed how to load and query data from the Strava API in PostgreSQL, and after executing some simple queries, my next task was to query more complex part of the JSON structure.

Strava allows users to create segments, which are edited portions of road or trail where athletes can compete for time.

I wanted to write a query to find all the times that I’d run a particular segment. For example, the Akerman Road segment covers a road running North to South in Kennington/Stockwell in South London.

This segment has the ID ‘6818475’, so we’ll need to look inside segment_efforts and then compare the value segment.id against this ID.

I initially wrote this query to try to find the times I’d run this segment:

SELECT id, data->'start_date' AS startDate, data->'average_speed' AS averageSpeed
FROM runs
WHERE jsonb_array_elements(data->'segment_efforts')->'segment'->>'id' = '6818475'
 
ERROR:  argument OF WHERE must NOT RETURN a SET
LINE 3: WHERE jsonb_array_elements(data->'segment_efforts')->'segmen...

This doesn’t work since jsonb_array_elements returns a set of boolean values, as Craig Ringer points out on Stack Overflow.

Instead, we can use a LATERAL subquery to achieve our goal:

SELECT id, data->'start_date' AS startDate, data->'average_speed' AS averageSpeed
FROM runs r,
LATERAL jsonb_array_elements(r.data->'segment_efforts') segment
WHERE segment ->'segment'->>'id' = '6818475'
 
    id     |       startdate        | averagespeed 
-----------+------------------------+--------------
 455461182 | "2015-12-24T11:20:26Z" | 2.841
 440088621 | "2015-11-27T06:10:42Z" | 2.975
 407930503 | "2015-10-07T05:18:34Z" | 2.985
 317170464 | "2015-06-03T04:44:59Z" | 2.842
 312629236 | "2015-05-27T04:46:33Z" | 2.857
 277786711 | "2015-04-02T05:25:59Z" | 2.408
 226351235 | "2014-12-05T07:59:15Z" | 2.803
 225073326 | "2014-12-01T06:15:21Z" | 2.929
 224287690 | "2014-11-29T09:02:46Z" | 3.087
 223964715 | "2014-11-28T06:18:29Z" | 2.844
(10 ROWS)

Perfect!

PostgreSQL Database

Published at DZone with permission of Mark Needham, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • ChatGPT: The Unexpected API Test Automation Help
  • Fraud Detection With Apache Kafka, KSQL, and Apache Flink
  • Top Three Docker Alternatives To Consider
  • Select ChatGPT From SQL? You Bet!

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: