In this post, I am sharing a new feature CROSSTABVIEW in PSQL of PostgreSQL 9.6. Many times we require data arrangement horizontally, instead of vertically.

Something like we are doing in a spreadsheet where one element has a multiple child elements and require calculation horizontally for each group of items.

Now, you can use CROSSTABVIEW in new PSQL for this kind of requirement.

Below is a small demonstration of this:

Open a psql command line and create a below sample table:

create table tbl_range as
select
    ('{a,b,c,d,e,f}'::text[])[1 + floor(random() * 6)] as data1
    ,('{g,h,i,j,k,l}'::text[])[1 + floor(random() * 6)] as data2
    ,random() * 1000 as randomnumber
from generate_series(1,10000);

Execute below few SELECTs:

select * from tbl_range;
select data1, data2, count(*) from tbl_range group by data1, data2;

Now check sample SELECT with CROSSTABVIEW:

select data1, data2, count(*) from tbl_range group by data1, data2 \crosstabview data1 data2 count;

The result:

dbrnd=# select data1, data2, count(*) from tbl_range group by data1, data2 \crosstabview data1 data2 count;
 data1 |  k  |  j  |  i  |  h  |  g  |  l
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
 f     | 281 | 273 | 261 | 265 | 268 | 258
 a     | 288 | 293 | 278 | 293 | 248 | 279
 d     | 293 | 264 | 278 | 258 | 289 | 291
 c     | 272 | 276 | 292 | 287 | 263 | 281
 e     | 269 | 279 | 281 | 257 | 274 | 318
 b     | 289 | 270 | 301 | 295 | 247 | 291
(6 rows)