How do I get min, median and max from my query in postgresql? - postgresql

Question

I have written a query in which one column is a month. From that I have to get min month, max month, and median month. Below is my query.
select ext.employee,
pl.fromdate,
ext.FULL_INC as full_inc,
prevExt.FULL_INC as prevInc,
(extract(year from age (pl.fromdate))*12 +extract(month from age (pl.fromdate))) as month,
case
when prevExt.FULL_INC is not null then (ext.FULL_INC -coalesce(prevExt.FULL_INC,0))
else 0
end as difference,
(case when prevExt.FULL_INC is not null then (ext.FULL_INC - prevExt.FULL_INC) / prevExt.FULL_INC*100 else 0 end) as percent
from pl_payroll pl
inner join pl_extpayfile ext
on pl.cid = ext.payrollid
and ext.FULL_INC is not null
left outer join pl_extpayfile prevExt
on prevExt.employee = ext.employee
and prevExt.cid = (select max (cid) from pl_extpayfile
where employee = prevExt.employee
and payrollid = (
select max(p.cid)
from pl_extpayfile,
pl_payroll p
where p.cid = payrollid
and pl_extpayfile.employee = prevExt.employee
and p.fromdate < pl.fromdate
))
and coalesce(prevExt.FULL_INC, 0) > 0
where ext.employee = 17
and (exists (
select employee
from pl_extpayfile preext
where preext.employee = ext.employee
and preext.FULL_INC <> ext.FULL_INC
and payrollid in (
select cid
from pl_payroll
where cid = (
select max(p.cid)
from pl_extpayfile,
pl_payroll p
where p.cid = payrollid
and pl_extpayfile.employee = preext.employee
and p.fromdate < pl.fromdate
)
)
)
or not exists (
select employee
from pl_extpayfile fext,
pl_payroll p
where fext.employee = ext.employee
and p.cid = fext.payrollid
and p.fromdate < pl.fromdate
and fext.FULL_INC > 0
)
)
order by employee,
ext.payrollid desc
If it is not possible, than is it possible to get max month and min month?

Answer 1

To calculate the median in PostgreSQL, simply take the 50% percentile (no need to add extra functions or anything):
SELECT PERCENTILE_CONT(0.5) WITHIN GROUP(ORDER BY x) FROM t;

Answer 2

You want the aggregate functions named min and max. See the PostgreSQL documentation and tutorial:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/tutorial-agg.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-aggregate.html
There's no built-in median in PostgreSQL, however one has been implemented and contributed to the wiki:
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Aggregate_Median
It's used the same way as min and max once you've loaded it. Being written in PL/PgSQL it'll be a fair bit slower, but there's even a C version there that you could adapt if speed was vital.
UPDATE After comment:
It sounds like you want to show the statistical aggregates alongside the individual results. You can't do this with a plain aggregate function because you can't reference columns not in the GROUP BY in the result list.
You will need to fetch the stats from subqueries, or use your aggregates as window functions.
Given dummy data:
CREATE TABLE dummystats ( depname text, empno integer, salary integer );
INSERT INTO dummystats(depname,empno,salary) VALUES
('develop',11,5200),
('develop',7,4200),
('personell',2,5555),
('mgmt',1,9999999);
... and after adding the median aggregate from the PG wiki:
You can do this with an ordinary aggregate:
regress=# SELECT min(salary), max(salary), median(salary) FROM dummystats;
min | max | median
------+---------+----------------------
4200 | 9999999 | 5377.5000000000000000
(1 row)
but not this:
regress=# SELECT depname, empno, min(salary), max(salary), median(salary)
regress-# FROM dummystats;
ERROR: column "dummystats.depname" must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in an aggregate function
because it doesn't make sense in the aggregation model to show the averages alongside individual values. You can show groups:
regress=# SELECT depname, min(salary), max(salary), median(salary)
regress-# FROM dummystats GROUP BY depname;
depname | min | max | median
-----------+---------+---------+-----------------------
personell | 5555 | 5555 | 5555.0000000000000000
develop | 4200 | 5200 | 4700.0000000000000000
mgmt | 9999999 | 9999999 | 9999999.000000000000
(3 rows)
... but it sounds like you want the individual values. For that, you must use a window, a feature new in PostgreSQL 8.4.
regress=# SELECT depname, empno,
min(salary) OVER (),
max(salary) OVER (),
median(salary) OVER ()
FROM dummystats;
depname | empno | min | max | median
-----------+-------+------+---------+-----------------------
develop | 11 | 4200 | 9999999 | 5377.5000000000000000
develop | 7 | 4200 | 9999999 | 5377.5000000000000000
personell | 2 | 4200 | 9999999 | 5377.5000000000000000
mgmt | 1 | 4200 | 9999999 | 5377.5000000000000000
(4 rows)
See also:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/tutorial-window.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-window.html

Answer 3

One more option for median:
SELECT x
FROM table
ORDER BY x
LIMIT 1 offset (select count(*) from x)/2

Answer 4

To find Median:
for instance consider that we have 6000 rows present in the table.First we need to take half rows from the original Table (because we know that median is always the middle value) so here half of 6000 is 3000(Take 3001 for getting exact two middle value).
SELECT *
FROM (SELECT column_name
FROM Table_name
ORDER BY column_name
LIMIT 3001)As Table1
ORDER BY column_name DESC ---->Look here we used DESC(Z-A)it will display the last
-- two values(using LIMIT 2) i.e (3000th row and 3001th row) from 6000
-- rows
LIMIT 2;