Function to Calculate Median in SQL Server

Question

According to MSDN, Median is not available as an aggregate function in Transact-SQL. However, I would like to find out whether it is possible to create this functionality (u

Answer 1

Although Justin grant's solution appears solid I found that when you have a number of duplicate values within a given partition key the row numbers for the ASC duplicate values end up out of sequence so they do not properly align.

Here is a fragment from my result:

KEY VALUE ROWA ROWD  

13  2     22   182
13  1     6    183
13  1     7    184
13  1     8    185
13  1     9    186
13  1     10   187
13  1     11   188
13  1     12   189
13  0     1    190
13  0     2    191
13  0     3    192
13  0     4    193
13  0     5    194

I used Justin's code as the basis for this solution. Although not as efficient given the use of multiple derived tables it does resolve the row ordering problem I encountered. Any improvements would be welcome as I am not that experienced in T-SQL.

SELECT PKEY, cast(AVG(VALUE)as decimal(5,2)) as MEDIANVALUE
FROM
(
  SELECT PKEY,VALUE,ROWA,ROWD,
  'FLAG' = (CASE WHEN ROWA IN (ROWD,ROWD-1,ROWD+1) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END)
  FROM
  (
    SELECT
    PKEY,
    cast(VALUE as decimal(5,2)) as VALUE,
    ROWA,
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY PKEY ORDER BY ROWA DESC) as ROWD 

    FROM
    (
      SELECT
      PKEY, 
      VALUE,
      ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY PKEY ORDER BY VALUE ASC,PKEY ASC ) as ROWA 
      FROM [MTEST]
    )T1
  )T2
)T3
WHERE FLAG = '1'
GROUP BY PKEY
ORDER BY PKEY