Combining rows to remove blank entries

Question

Hi,
I have searched the forum to try and find an example of the problem I am having but
have not had any luck finding anything. Some help would be appreciated.
I am currently using Oracle 9i.
The problem is that I have a query, returning results as shown below
and I want to remove as many null values as possible.
Goals , Team1 , Team2
1 , Jim , NULL
1 , John , NULL
1 , NULL , Bob
2 , Harry , NULL
2 , NULL , Steve
3 , Jill ,NULL
3 , NULL , Penny
3 , NULL , Sally
The Goals column is numeric, is not unique and is always filled.
The Team1 column contains a name or is null.
The Team2 column contains a name or is null.
Either Team1 has a non null value or Team2 has a non null value.
They cannot both be filled or both be blank.
The result set I would like is an order on Goals, where we collapse the results as much as possible.
So that if a non null Team1 row and Team2 row exist for a given number of goals, they are shown on the same row.
We repeat this till all results are shown for a given number of goals.
If there are more results in Team1 than Team2 say for a given goals scored, we show the team1 result and null for team2 and vice versa.
If the Team1 and Team2 values can be sorted on name within the same goals scored, this would be great as well
To visualise this, the table would look like: -
Goals , Team1 , Team2
1 , Jim , Bob
1 , John , NULL
2 , Harry , Steve
3 , Jill , Penny
3 , NULL , Sally
Thanks for the help,
Rich

Answer 1

Here's an approach.
ME_XE?with
  2     data as
  3  (
  4     select 1 as goals , 'Jim' as team1 , NULL as team2 from dual union all
  5     select 1 as goals , 'John' as team1 , NULL as team2 from dual union all
  6     select 1 as goals , NULL as team1 , 'Bob' as team2 from dual union all
  7     select 2 as goals , 'Harry' as team1 , NULL as team2 from dual union all
  8     select 2 as goals , NULL as team1 , 'Steve' as team2 from dual union all
  9     select 3 as goals , 'Jill' as team1 ,NULL as team2 from dual union all
10     select 3 as goals , NULL as team1 , 'Penny' as team2 from dual union all
11     select 3 as goals , NULL as team1 , 'Sally' as team2 from dual
12  ),
13     set_one as
14  (
15     select goals, team1, row_number() over (partition by goals order by team1 asc) as rn
16     from data
17     where team1 is not null
18     order by team1 asc
19  ),
20     set_two as
21  (
22     select goals, team2, row_number() over (partition by goals order by team2 asc) as rn
23     from data
24     where team2 is not null
25     order by team2 asc
26  )
27  select NVL(s1.goals, s2.goals), team1, team2
28  from set_one s1 FULL OUTER JOIN set_two s2
29  ON (s1.goals = s2.goals and   s1.rn = s2.rn)
30  order by s1.goals asc
31  /
NVL(S1.GOALS,S2.GOALS) TEAM1           TEAM2
                     1 Jim             Bob
                     1 John
                     2 Harry           Steve
                     3 Jill            Penny
                     3                 Sally
5 rows selected.