How to elmininate values ​​in Oracle-SQL-Table that mean the same thing?

Question

I have a table like this:

ID  |  Val1  |  Val2
---------------------
1   |    1   |   2
2   |    1   |   3
3   |    2   |   1
4   |    2   |   3
5   |    3   |   1
6   |    3   |   2

now my problem is that 1 - 2 means the same as 2 - 1 (e.g. look @ID 1 and ID 3) and I want to exclude all entries where the value 1 - the value 2 means the same thing value 2 is value1 (hope you could follow my logic here).

Answer 1

How about this:

DELETE t
 WHERE ID IN 
       (SELECT t1.id
          FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 
                      ON (t1.val1 = t2.val2 AND 
                          t1.val2 = t2.val1 AND 
                          t1.id < t2.id));

I arbitrarily saved the row with the highest id value.

Example:

SQL> CREATE TABLE t (ID INTEGER, val1 INTEGER, val2 INTEGER);

Table created
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(1,1,2);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(2,1,3);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(3,2,1);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(4,2,3);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(5,3,1);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(6,3,2);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(7,4,4);

1 row inserted
SQL> INSERT INTO t VALUES(8,4,4);

1 row inserted
SQL> SELECT * FROM t;

 ID VAL VAL
--- --- ---
  1   1   2
  2   1   3
  3   2   1
  4   2   3
  5   3   1
  6   3   2
  7   4   4
  8   4   4

8 rows selected
SQL> DELETE t
  2   WHERE ID IN (SELECT t1.id
  3                  FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val2 AND t1.val2 = t2.val1 AND t1.id < t2.id));

4 rows deleted
SQL> SELECT * FROM t;

 ID VAL VAL
--- --- ---
  3   2   1
  5   3   1
  6   3   2
  8   4   4

SQL> 

Easily adapted to store different strings, for example,

DELETE t
 WHERE ID IN 
       (SELECT t1.id
          FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 
                      ON (t1.val1 = t2.val2 AND 
                          t1.val2 = t2.val1 AND 
                          (t2.val1 < t1.val1 OR (t2.val1 = t1.val1 AND t2.id > t1.id))));

UPDATE: I could not come up with a really smart way, so here is the brute force method to answer the question in your comment:

CREATE TABLE t (ID INTEGER, val1 INTEGER, val2 INTEGER, val3 INTEGER);

INSERT INTO t VALUES (1, 1, 2, 3);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (2, 1, 3, 2);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (3, 2, 1, 3);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (4, 2, 3, 1);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (5, 3, 1, 2);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (6, 3, 2, 1);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (7, 1, 2, 4);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (8, 1, 3, 5);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (9, 1, 4, 2);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (10, 1, 1, 1);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (11, 1, 1, 1);
INSERT INTO t VALUES (12, 1, 3, 5);

SQL> select * from t order by id;

 ID VAL VAL VAL
--- --- --- ---
  1   1   2   3
  2   1   3   2
  3   2   1   3
  4   2   3   1
  5   3   1   2
  6   3   2   1
  7   1   2   4
  8   1   3   5
  9   1   4   2
 10   1   1   1
 11   1   1   1
 12   1   3   5

12 rows selected

DELETE FROM t 
 WHERE ID IN (SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val1 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val2 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val3 AND t1.id < t2.id)
              UNION ALL
              SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val1 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val3 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val2 AND t1.id < t2.id)
              UNION ALL 
              SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val2 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val1 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val3 AND t1.id < t2.id)
              UNION ALL 
              SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val2 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val3 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val1 AND t1.id < t2.id)
              UNION ALL 
              SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val3 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val1 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val2 AND t1.id < t2.id)
              UNION ALL 
              SELECT t1.ID FROM t t1 JOIN t t2 ON (t1.val1 = t2.val3 AND 
                                                   t1.val2 = t2.val2 AND 
                                                   t1.val3 = t2.val1 AND t1.id < t2.id));

select * from t order by id;

 ID VAL VAL VAL
--- --- --- ---
  6   3   2   1
  9   1   4   2
 11   1   1   1
 12   1   3   5

Answer 2

, , .

select * from YourTable t1
where not exists (select * from YourTable t2 
                 where t1.Val1 = t2.Val2 
                 and t1.Val2 = t2.Val1)

Answer 3

, Oracle ( DELETE), :

DELETE
    T1
FROM
    My_Table T1
INNER JOIN My_Table T2 ON
    T2.val1 = T1.val2 AND
    T2.val2 = T1.val2 AND
WHERE
    T1.val1 < T1.val2

, , , , val1 < val2. ( ) , .

, , , , , (val1 ) .

Answer 4

delete from YourTable
   where (Val1, Val2)
      in (select Val2, Val1 from YourTable where Val1 > Val2)

There is a corner case that is poorly handled. This is the case when Val1 and Val2 are equal. Removing all but one of these lines is a bit more complicated. Does anyone have any ideas?