


What's the Most Efficient Way to Calculate Running Totals in SQL Server?
Jan 25, 2025 am 03:32 AMDetailed explanation of SQL Server cumulative sum calculation method
Calculating cumulative sums in SQL queries is a common requirement. The OVER
clause provides a convenient way to perform such calculations in Oracle and ANSI-SQL. However, SQL Server's implementation of the OVER
clause lacks the flexibility to handle certain use cases.
Update Tips
Despite its disadvantages, an effective technique for calculating cumulative sums in SQL Server is to use an aggregate set statement. This method includes:
- Create a temporary table with the same columns as the original table.
- Insert the data from the original table into the temporary table while setting the cumulative sum column to NULL.
- Update temporary table to calculate cumulative sum based on previous values.
This technique is very efficient, but has potential problems:
-
The order in which the
-
UPDATE
statement processes rows may not always be the same as the date order. - The update trick relies on undocumented implementation details of SQL Server.
Benchmark comparison
Benchmark testing shows that, within the constraints of SQL Server, the cursor method is the fastest and safest way to calculate a cumulative sum. The update trick provides the highest performance, but has potential issues with processing order. Therefore, for production code, it is recommended to use a cursor-based approach.
Example code and benchmark data
The following code provides a working example along with test data for benchmarking:
Test data settings:
CREATE TABLE #t ( ord INT PRIMARY KEY, total INT, running_total INT ); SET NOCOUNT ON; DECLARE @i INT; SET @i = 0; BEGIN TRAN; WHILE @i < 10000 BEGIN INSERT INTO #t (ord, total) VALUES (@i, ABS(CHECKSUM(NEWID()) % 1000)); SET @i = @i + 1; END; COMMIT TRAN;
Test method:
Test 1: Correlated subquery
SELECT ord, total, (SELECT SUM(total) FROM #t b WHERE b.ord <= a.ord) AS RunningTotal FROM #t a ORDER BY a.ord;
Test 2: Cross-connection
SELECT a.ord, a.total, SUM(b.total) AS RunningTotal FROM #t a CROSS JOIN #t b WHERE b.ord <= a.ord GROUP BY a.ord, a.total ORDER BY a.ord;
Test 3: Cursor
DECLARE @TotalTable TABLE ( ord INT PRIMARY KEY, total INT, running_total INT ); DECLARE forward_cursor CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR SELECT ord, total FROM #t ORDER BY ord; OPEN forward_cursor; DECLARE @running_total INT, @ord INT, @total INT; SET @running_total = 0; FETCH NEXT FROM forward_cursor INTO @ord, @total; WHILE (@@FETCH_STATUS = 0) BEGIN SET @running_total = @running_total + @total; INSERT @TotalTable VALUES (@ord, @total, @running_total); FETCH NEXT FROM forward_cursor INTO @ord, @total; END; CLOSE forward_cursor; DEALLOCATE forward_cursor; SELECT * FROM @TotalTable;
Test 4: Update Tips
DECLARE @total INT; SET @total = 0; UPDATE #t SET running_total = @total, @total = @total + total; SELECT * FROM #t;
By comparing the execution efficiency of the above four methods, the best practice for calculating cumulative sums in SQL Server can be derived. Note that actual performance may vary depending on data volume and server configuration.
The above is the detailed content of What's the Most Efficient Way to Calculate Running Totals in SQL Server?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Hot AI Tools

Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free

Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Article

Hot Tools

Notepad++7.3.1
Easy-to-use and free code editor

SublimeText3 Chinese version
Chinese version, very easy to use

Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment

Dreamweaver CS6
Visual web development tools

SublimeText3 Mac version
God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)

Hot Topics

The default user name of MySQL is usually 'root', but the password varies according to the installation environment; in some Linux distributions, the root account may be authenticated by auth_socket plug-in and cannot log in with the password; when installing tools such as XAMPP or WAMP under Windows, root users usually have no password or use common passwords such as root, mysql, etc.; if you forget the password, you can reset it by stopping the MySQL service, starting in --skip-grant-tables mode, updating the mysql.user table to set a new password and restarting the service; note that the MySQL8.0 version requires additional authentication plug-ins.

GTID (Global Transaction Identifier) ??solves the complexity of replication and failover in MySQL databases by assigning a unique identity to each transaction. 1. It simplifies replication management, automatically handles log files and locations, allowing slave servers to request transactions based on the last executed GTID. 2. Ensure consistency across servers, ensure that each transaction is applied only once on each server, and avoid data inconsistency. 3. Improve troubleshooting efficiency. GTID includes server UUID and serial number, which is convenient for tracking transaction flow and accurately locate problems. These three core advantages make MySQL replication more robust and easy to manage, significantly improving system reliability and data integrity.

MySQL main library failover mainly includes four steps. 1. Fault detection: Regularly check the main library process, connection status and simple query to determine whether it is downtime, set up a retry mechanism to avoid misjudgment, and can use tools such as MHA, Orchestrator or Keepalived to assist in detection; 2. Select the new main library: select the most suitable slave library to replace it according to the data synchronization progress (Seconds_Behind_Master), binlog data integrity, network delay and load conditions, and perform data compensation or manual intervention if necessary; 3. Switch topology: Point other slave libraries to the new master library, execute RESETMASTER or enable GTID, update the VIP, DNS or proxy configuration to

There are three ways to modify or reset MySQLroot user password: 1. Use the ALTERUSER command to modify existing passwords, and execute the corresponding statement after logging in; 2. If you forget your password, you need to stop the service and start it in --skip-grant-tables mode before modifying; 3. The mysqladmin command can be used to modify it directly by modifying it. Each method is suitable for different scenarios and the operation sequence must not be messed up. After the modification is completed, verification must be made and permission protection must be paid attention to.

The steps to connect to the MySQL database are as follows: 1. Use the basic command format mysql-u username-p-h host address to connect, enter the username and password to log in; 2. If you need to directly enter the specified database, you can add the database name after the command, such as mysql-uroot-pmyproject; 3. If the port is not the default 3306, you need to add the -P parameter to specify the port number, such as mysql-uroot-p-h192.168.1.100-P3307; In addition, if you encounter a password error, you can re-enter it. If the connection fails, check the network, firewall or permission settings. If the client is missing, you can install mysql-client on Linux through the package manager. Master these commands

Toalteralargeproductiontablewithoutlonglocks,useonlineDDLtechniques.1)IdentifyifyourALTERoperationisfast(e.g.,adding/droppingcolumns,modifyingNULL/NOTNULL)orslow(e.g.,changingdatatypes,reorderingcolumns,addingindexesonlargedata).2)Usedatabase-specifi

InnoDB implements repeatable reads through MVCC and gap lock. MVCC realizes consistent reading through snapshots, and the transaction query results remain unchanged after multiple transactions; gap lock prevents other transactions from inserting data and avoids phantom reading. For example, transaction A first query gets a value of 100, transaction B is modified to 200 and submitted, A is still 100 in query again; and when performing scope query, gap lock prevents other transactions from inserting records. In addition, non-unique index scans may add gap locks by default, and primary key or unique index equivalent queries may not be added, and gap locks can be cancelled by reducing isolation levels or explicit lock control.

MySQL's default transaction isolation level is RepeatableRead, which prevents dirty reads and non-repeatable reads through MVCC and gap locks, and avoids phantom reading in most cases; other major levels include read uncommitted (ReadUncommitted), allowing dirty reads but the fastest performance, 1. Read Committed (ReadCommitted) ensures that the submitted data is read but may encounter non-repeatable reads and phantom readings, 2. RepeatableRead default level ensures that multiple reads within the transaction are consistent, 3. Serialization (Serializable) the highest level, prevents other transactions from modifying data through locks, ensuring data integrity but sacrificing performance;
