Creating even ranges based on values in an oracle table - plsql

Question

I have a big table which is 100k rows in size and the PRIMARY KEY is of the datatype NUMBER. The way data is populated in this column is using a random number generator.
So my question is, can there be a possibility to have a SQL query that can help me with getting partition the table evenly with the range of values. Eg: If my column value is like this:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
And I would like this to be broken into three partitions, then I would expect an output like this:
Range 1 1-3
Range 2 4-7
Range 3 8-10

Answer 1

It sounds like you want the WIDTH_BUCKET() function. Find out more.
This query will give you the start and end range for a table of 1250 rows split into 20 buckets based on id:
with bkt as (
select id
, width_bucket(id, 1, 1251, 20) as id_bucket
from t23
)
select id_bucket
, min(id) as bkt_start
, max(id) as bkt_end
, count(*)
from bkt
group by id_bucket
order by 1
;
The two middle parameters specify min and max values; the last parameter specifies the number of buckets. The output is the rows between the minimum and maximum bows split as evenly as possible into the specified number of buckets. Be careful with the min and max parameters; I've found poorly chosen bounds can have an odd effect on the split.

Answer 2

This solution works without width_bucket function. While it is more verbose and certainly less efficient it will split the data as evenly as possible, even if some ID values are missing.
CREATE TABLE t AS
SELECT rownum AS id
FROM dual
CONNECT BY level <= 10;
WITH
data AS (
SELECT id, rownum as row_num
FROM t
),
total AS (
SELECT count(*) AS total_rows
FROM data
),
parts AS (
SELECT rownum as part_no, total.total_rows, total.total_rows / 3 as part_rows
FROM dual, total
CONNECT BY level <= 3
),
bounds AS (
SELECT parts.part_no,
parts.total_rows,
parts.part_rows,
COALESCE(LAG(data.row_num) OVER (ORDER BY parts.part_no) + 1, 1) AS start_row_num,
data.row_num AS end_row_num
FROM data
JOIN parts
ON data.row_num = ROUND(parts.part_no * parts.part_rows, 0)
)
SELECT bounds.part_no, d1.ID AS start_id, d2.ID AS end_id
FROM bounds
JOIN data d1
ON d1.row_num = bounds.start_row_num
JOIN data d2
ON d2.row_num = bounds.end_row_num
ORDER BY bounds.part_no;
PART_NO START_ID END_ID
---------- ---------- ----------
1 1 3
2 4 7
3 8 10