Is it possible to use Aggregate function in a Select statment without using Group By clause?

Question

So far I have written Aggregate function followed by Group By clause to find the values based on SUM, AVG and other Aggregate functions. I have a bit confusion in the Group By clause. When we use Aggregate functions what are the columns I need to specify in the Group By clause. Otherwise Is there any way to use Aggregate functions without using Group By clause.

Answer 1

All columns in the SELECT clause that do not have an aggregate need to be in the GROUP BY

Good:

SELECT col1, col2, col3, MAX(col4)
...
GROUP BY col1, col2, col3

Also good:

SELECT col1, col2, col3, MAX(col4)
...
GROUP BY col1, col2, col3, col5, col6

No other columns = no GROUP BY needed

SELECT MAX(col4)
...

Won't work:

SELECT col1, col2, col3, MAX(col4)
...
GROUP BY col1, col2

Pointless:

SELECT col1, col2, col3, MAX(col4)
...
GROUP BY col1, col2, col3, MAX(col4)

Having an aggregate (MAX etc) with other columns without a GROUP BY makes no sense because the query becomes ambiguous.

Answer 2

You can use Select AGG() OVER() in TSQL

SELECT *,
SUM(Value) OVER()
FROM Table

There are other options for Over such as Partition By if you want to group:

SELECT *,
SUM(Value) OVER(PARTITION By ParentId)
FROM Table

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189461.aspx

Answer 3

Yes you can use an aggregate without GROUP BY:

SELECT SUM(col) FROM tbl;

This will return one row only - the sum of the column "col" for all rows in tbl (excluding nulls).

Answer 4

You must group by columns that do not have aggregate functions on them.

You may avoid a group by clause if all columns selected have aggregate functions applied.

Answer 5

You omit columns from the SELECT inside aggregate functions, all other columns should exist in GROUP BY clause seperated by comma.

You can have query with aggregates and no group by, as long as you have ONLY aggregate values in the SELECT statement

Answer 6

The Columns which are not present in the Aggregate function should come on group by clause:

Select 
Min(col1), 
Avg(col2), 
sum(col3) 
from table

then we do not required group by clause, But if there is some column which are not present in the Aggregate function then you must use group by for that column.

Select 
col1, 
col2, 
sum(col3) 
from  table 

group by col1,col2

then we have to use the group by for the column col1 and col2