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In general a pivot is more like a cross product.<div><br></div><div>Let's say you have the usual sales data:</div><div><br></div><div>Product<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Date <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Amount</div><div>Valentina<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>01.01.2009<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>100</div><div>MySQL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>15.02.2009<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>200</div><div>Valentina<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>17.02.2009<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>150</div><div>MySQL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>19.03.2009<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>300</div><div>Valentina<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>19.02.2009<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>100</div><div><br></div><div>Now you want to know what products you sold per month. You do a pivot</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>January February<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>March<br></div><div>Valentina<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>100<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>250<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>0</div><div>mySQL<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>0<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>200<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>300</div><div><br></div><div>A very long time ago I learned to pivot with Excel. It offers a nice visual way to learn it. Access has a wizard, which then can create the SQL from the pivot. It's an important tool for doing reports.</div><div><br></div><div><div><div>On 26.02.2009, at 16:01, Thorsten Hohage wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">On 2009-02-26, at 15:25, Fabian Eschrich wrote:</font></p> <blockquote type="cite"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Beatrix or Ruslan, can you explain PIVOT to me?</font></p> </blockquote><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">in general a PIVOT is known as a MATRIX operation. A MATRIX can you <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">imagine as an excel sheet, or a table with rows and columns, in the <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">simplest case even one row or one column, or ONE "cell" is a MATRIX.</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Using pivot now means to switch the elements over the top left to <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">bottom right diagonal line - an element in row 3 column 2 will be come <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">the element in row 2 column 3 ....</font></p></blockquote><div><br></div>Pivot doesn't have anything to do with transposing your data.</div><br><div> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Mit freundlichen Grüßen/Regards</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Trixi Willius</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><a href="http://www.mothsoftware.com">http://www.mothsoftware.com</a></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Mail Archiver X: archive, clean and search email</font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><a href="http://www.beatrixwillius.de">http://www.beatrixwillius.de</a></font></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Fractals, 3d landscapes etc.</font></p> </div><br></div></body></html>