Aggregate Functions in SQL

By their very nature, our databases contain a lot of data. In previous features, we've explored methods of extracting the specific data we're looking for using the Structured Query Language (SQL). Those methods worked great when we were seeking the proverbial needle in the haystack. We were able to answer obscure questions like "What are the last names of all customers who have purchased Siberian wool during the slow months of July and August?"

Oftentimes, we're also interested in summarizing our data to determine trends or produce top-level reports. For example, the purchasing manager may not be interested in a listing of all widget sales, but may simply want to know the number of widgets sold this month. Fortunately, SQL provides aggregate functions to assist with the summarization of large volumes of data. In this three-segment article, we'll look at functions that allow us to add and average data, count records meeting specific criteria and find the largest and smallest values in a table.