The SQL OVER() clause - when and why is it useful?

Question

    USE AdventureWorks2008R2;
GO
SELECT SalesOrderID, ProductID, OrderQty
    ,SUM(OrderQty) OVER(PARTITION BY SalesOrderID) AS \'Total\'
    ,AVG(OrderQty) OVER(PAR         


        

Answer 1

If you only wanted to GROUP BY the SalesOrderID then you wouldn't be able to include the ProductID and OrderQty columns in the SELECT clause.

The PARTITION BY clause let's you break up your aggregate functions. One obvious and useful example would be if you wanted to generate line numbers for order lines on an order:

SELECT
    O.order_id,
    O.order_date,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY O.order_id) AS line_item_no,
    OL.product_id
FROM
    Orders O
INNER JOIN Order_Lines OL ON OL.order_id = O.order_id

(My syntax might be off slightly)

You would then get back something like:

order_id    order_date    line_item_no    product_id
--------    ----------    ------------    ----------
    1       2011-05-02         1              5
    1       2011-05-02         2              4
    1       2011-05-02         3              7
    2       2011-05-12         1              8
    2       2011-05-12         2              1