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Average Review Ratings [Amazon SQL Interview Question]
Given the reviews table, write a query to get the average stars for each product every month.
The output should include the month in numerical value, product id, and average star rating rounded to two decimal places. Sort the output based on month followed by the product id.
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Table:
| Column Name | Type |
|---|---|
| review_id | integer |
| user_id | integer |
| submit_date | datetime |
| product_id | integer |
| stars | integer (1-5) |
Example Input:
| review_id | user_id | submit_date | product_id | stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6171 | 123 | 06/08/2022 00:00:00 | 50001 | 4 |
| 7802 | 265 | 06/10/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 4 |
| 5293 | 362 | 06/18/2022 00:00:00 | 50001 | 3 |
| 6352 | 192 | 07/26/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 3 |
| 4517 | 981 | 07/05/2022 00:00:00 | 69852 | 2 |
Example Output:
| mth | product | avg_stars |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | 50001 | 3.50 |
| 6 | 69852 | 4.00 |
| 7 | 69852 | 2.50 |
Explanation
In June (month #6), product 50001 had two ratings - 4 and 3, resulting in an average star rating of 3.5.
The dataset you are querying against may have different input & output - this is just an example!
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Solution
As we can see, there is no month column in the table. First, we have to extract the month from the column.
There is a simple function to extract month from a date. Here's the syntax:
You can look at this page for more explanation on the function.
After extracting the month in numerical values, get the average of the star ratings and round them to two decimal places. It can be achieved using the functions and . Please refer [1] & [2] for some reading on the functions.
Solution:
Why can't we write in the GROUP BY clause, but we can do so in the ORDER BY clause?
This is the order of sequence of how SQL executes the solution's query from top to bottom:
SQL runs the GROUP BY clause BEFORE the SELECT statement. Hence, when SQL executes the grouping, it cannot say because the column only exists AFTER the SELECT statement is executed.
The reason why we can execute column in the ORDER BY clause is because it's run after the SELECT statement and column has been created.
This is a very popular question in technical interviews so make sure that you learn the order of SQL execution well!
PostgreSQL 14