ASA SQL User's Guide
Summarizing, Grouping and Sorting Query Results
The GROUP BY clause: organizing query results into groups
A GROUP BY clause almost always appears in statements that include aggregate functions, in which case the aggregate produces a value for each group. These values are called vector aggregates. (Remember that a scalar aggregate is a single value produced by an aggregate function without a GROUP BY clause.)
The following query lists the average price of each kind of product:
SELECT name, AVG(unit_price) AS Price FROM product GROUP BY name
name | Price |
---|---|
Tee Shirt | 12.333333333 |
Baseball Cap | 9.5 |
Visor | 7 |
Sweatshirt | 24 |
... | ... |
The summary values (vector aggregates) produced by SELECT statements with aggregates and a GROUP BY appear as columns in each row of the results. By contrast, the summary values (scalar aggregates) produced by queries with aggregates and no GROUP BY also appear as columns, but with only one row. For example:
SELECT AVG(unit_price) FROM product
AVG(product.unit_price) |
---|
13.3 |