Querying: Aggregating and Projecting Time Series


  • Aggregation
    Queries can easily create powerful statistics by aggregating time series into groups by chosen time frames like an hour or a week, and retrieving values from each group by criteria like Min for the lowest value, Count for the number of values in the group, etc.

  • Projection by criteria
    Queries can explicitly select the criteria by which values would be retrieved and projected to the client.
    When a query does not select specific criteria, RavenDB will consider it an implicit selection of all criteria and project to the client the values from each group, that match each criterion.

    Projecting values from Aggregated and Non-Aggregated result-sets

    • When values are selected from a time series (or a range of time series entries) that has been aggregated, they are selected per-group.
    • When values are selected from a series or a range that hasn't been aggregated, they are selected from the entire result-set.

  • In this page:


Aggregation and Projection

In an RQL query, use the group by expression to aggregate time series (or ranges of time series entries) in groups by a chosen resolution, and the select keyword to choose and project entries by a chosen criteria.

You can aggregate entries by these time units:

  • Milliseconds
  • Seconds
  • Minutes
  • Hours
  • Days
  • Months
  • Quarters
  • Years

You can select values for projection by these criteria:

  • Min() - the lowest value
  • Max() - the highest value
  • Sum() - sum of all values
  • Average() - average value
  • First() - values of the first series entry
  • Last() - values of the last series entry
  • Count() - overall number of values in series entries

Query Examples

  • In this sample, we group entries of users' HeartRates time series and project the lowest and highest values of each group.
    Each HeartRates entry holds a single value.

    from Employees as e
    select timeseries(
        from HeartRates between 
            '2020-05-17T00:00:00.0000000Z' 
            and '2020-05-23T00:00:00.0000000Z'
        where Tag == 'watches/fitbit'
        group by '1 days'
        select min(), max()
    )
    • group by '1 days'
      We group each user's HeartRates time series entries in consecutive 1-day groups.
    • select min(), max()
      We select the lowest and highest values of each group and project them to the client.
  • In this sample, we group entries of companies' StockPrice time series in consecutive 7-day groups and project the highest and lowest values of each group.
    Each StockPrice entry holds five values, the query returns the Max and Min values of each:
    Values[0] - Open - stock price when the trade opens
    Values[1] - Close - stock price when the trade ends
    Values[2] - High - highest stock price during trade time
    Values[3] - Low - lowest stock price during trade time
    Values[4] - Volume - overall trade volume

    declare timeseries SP(c) 
    {
        from c.StockPrice 
        where Values[4] > 500000
            group by '7 day'
            select max(), min()
    }
    from Companies as c
    where c.Address.Country = 'USA'
    select c.Name, SP(c)
    • where Values[4] > 500000
      Query stock price behavior when the trade volume is high.
    • group by '7 day'
      Group each company's StockPrice entries in consecutive 7-day groups.
    • select max(), min()
      Select the highest (Max) and lowest (Min) values of each group and project them to the client.
      Since each entry holds 5 values, the query will project 5 Max values for each group (the highest Values[0], highest Values[1], etc.) and 5 Min values for each group (the lowest Values[0], lowest Values[1], etc.).
    • select c.Name, SP(c)
      Project the company's name along with the time series query results to make the results easier to read and understand.
  • This sample is similar to the one above it, except that time series entries are not aggregated, so the highest and lowest values are collected not from each group but from the entire result-set.

    declare timeseries SP(c) 
    {
        from c.StockPrice 
        where Values[4] > 500000
            select max(), min()
    }
    from Companies as c
    where c.Address.Country = 'USA'
    select c.Name, SP(c)
    • select max(), min()
      Since there is no aggregation, the entire result-set is queried and the results include only the all-time highest and lowest Open, Close, High, Low and Volume values.

Client Usage Samples

You can run queries from your client using raw RQL and LINQ.

  • Learn how to run a LINQ time series query here.
  • Learn how to run a raw RQL time series query here.

To aggregate time series entries, use GroupBy() in a LINQ query or group by in a raw RQL query.
To select time series values for projection, use Select() in a LINQ query or select in a raw RQL query.

  • Here we express the query we've discussed above using LINQ and both RQL syntaxes.
    IRavenQueryable<TimeSeriesAggregationResult> query = session.Query<Company>()
        .Where(c => c.Address.Country == "USA")
        .Select(q => RavenQuery.TimeSeries(q, "StockPrices")
            .Where(ts => ts.Values[4] > 500000)
            .GroupBy(g => g.Days(7))
            .Select(g => new
            {
                Min = g.Min(),
                Max = g.Max()
            })
            .ToList());
    
    var result = query.ToList();
    IRawDocumentQuery<TimeSeriesAggregationResult> aggregatedRawQuery =
        session.Advanced.RawQuery<TimeSeriesAggregationResult>(@"
            from Companies as c
                where c.Address.Country = 'USA'
                select timeseries ( 
                    from StockPrices 
                    where Values[4] > 500000
                        group by '7 day'
                        select max(), min()
                )
            ");
    
    var aggregatedRawQueryResult = aggregatedRawQuery.ToList();
    IRawDocumentQuery<TimeSeriesAggregationResult> aggregatedRawQuery =
        session.Advanced.RawQuery<TimeSeriesAggregationResult>(@"
            declare timeseries SP(c) {
                from c.StockPrices
                where Values[4] > 500000
                group by '7 day'
                select max(), min()
            }
            from Companies as c
            where c.Address.Country = 'USA'
            select c.Name, SP(c)"
            );
    
    var aggregatedRawQueryResult = aggregatedRawQuery.ToList();