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

Let me explain with an example and you would be able to see how it works.

Assuming you have the following table DIM_EQUIPMENT:

VIN         MAKE    MODEL   YEAR    COLOR
-----------------------------------------
1234ASDF    Ford    Taurus  2008    White
1234JKLM    Chevy   Truck   2005    Green
5678ASDF    Ford    Mustang 2008    Yellow

Run below SQL

SELECT VIN,
  MAKE,
  MODEL,
  YEAR,
  COLOR ,
  COUNT(*) OVER (PARTITION BY YEAR) AS COUNT2
FROM DIM_EQUIPMENT

The result would be as below

VIN         MAKE    MODEL   YEAR    COLOR     COUNT2
 ----------------------------------------------  
1234JKLM    Chevy   Truck   2005    Green     1
5678ASDF    Ford    Mustang 2008    Yellow    2
1234ASDF    Ford    Taurus  2008    White     2

See what happened.

You are able to count without Group By on YEAR and Match with ROW.

Another Interesting WAY to get same result if as below using WITH Clause, WITH works as in-line VIEW and can simplify the query especially complex ones, which is not the case here though since I am just trying to show usage

 WITH EQ AS
  ( SELECT YEAR AS YEAR2, COUNT(*) AS COUNT2 FROM DIM_EQUIPMENT GROUP BY YEAR
  )
SELECT VIN,
  MAKE,
  MODEL,
  YEAR,
  COLOR,
  COUNT2
FROM DIM_EQUIPMENT,
  EQ
WHERE EQ.YEAR2=DIM_EQUIPMENT.YEAR;