GROUP BY clause
Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime
The GROUP BY
clause is used to group the rows based on a set of specified grouping expressions and compute aggregations on the group of rows based on one or more specified aggregate functions.
Databricks SQL also supports advanced aggregations to do multiple aggregations for the same input record set via GROUPING SETS
, CUBE
, ROLLUP
clauses.
The grouping expressions and advanced aggregations can be mixed in the GROUP BY
clause and nested in a GROUPING SETS
clause.
See more details in the Mixed/Nested Grouping Analytics section.
When a FILTER
clause is attached to an aggregate function, only the matching rows are passed to that function.
Syntax
GROUP BY ALL
GROUP BY group_expression [, ...] [ WITH ROLLUP | WITH CUBE ]
GROUP BY { group_expression | { ROLLUP | CUBE | GROUPING SETS } ( grouping_set [, ...] ) } [, ...]
grouping_set
{ expression |
( [ expression [, ...] ] ) }
While aggregate functions are defined as
aggregate_name ( [ DISTINCT ] expression [, ...] ) [ FILTER ( WHERE boolean_expression ) ]
Parameters
ALL
Applies to: Databricks SQL Databricks Runtime 12.2 LTS and above
A shorthand notation to add all
SELECT
-list expressions not containing aggregate functions asgroup_expression
s. If no such expression existGROUP BY ALL
is equivalent to omitting theGROUP BY
clause which results in a global aggregation.GROUP BY ALL
is not guaranteed to produce a set of group expressions which can be resolved. Azure Databricks raises UNRESOLVED_ALL_IN_GROUP_BY or MISSING_AGGREGATION if the produced clause is not well-formed.group_expression
Specifies the criteria for grouping rows together. The grouping of rows is performed based on result values of the grouping expressions. A grouping expression may be a column name like
GROUP BY a
, column position likeGROUP BY 0
, or an expression likeGROUP BY a + b
. Ifgroup_expression
contains an aggregate function Azure Databricks raises a GROUP_BY_AGGREGATE error.grouping_set
A grouping set is specified by zero or more comma-separated expressions in parentheses. When the grouping set has only one element, parentheses can be omitted. For example,
GROUPING SETS ((a), (b))
is the same asGROUPING SETS (a, b)
.GROUPING SETS
Groups the rows for each grouping set specified after
GROUPING SETS
. For example:GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((warehouse), (product))
is semantically equivalent to a union of results ofGROUP BY warehouse
andGROUP BY product
.This clause is a shorthand for a
UNION ALL
where each leg of theUNION ALL
operator performs aggregation of each grouping set specified in theGROUPING SETS
clause.Similarly,
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((warehouse, product), (product), ())
is semantically equivalent to the union of results ofGROUP BY warehouse, product
,GROUP BY product
and a global aggregate.
Note
For Hive compatibility Databricks SQL allows GROUP BY ... GROUPING SETS (...)
.
The GROUP BY
expressions are usually ignored, but if they contain extra expressions in addition to the GROUPING SETS
expressions, the extra expressions will be included in the grouping expressions and the value is always null.
For example, in SELECT a, b, c FROM ... GROUP BY a, b, c GROUPING SETS (a, b)
, the output of column c is always null.
ROLLUP
Specifies multiple levels of aggregations in a single statement. This clause is used to compute aggregations based on multiple grouping sets.
ROLLUP
is a shorthand forGROUPING SETS
. For example:GROUP BY warehouse, product WITH ROLLUP
or
GROUP BY ROLLUP(warehouse, product)
is equivalent to
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((warehouse, product), (warehouse), ())
While
GROUP BY ROLLUP(warehouse, product, (warehouse, location))
is equivalent to
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((warehouse, product, location), (warehouse, product), (warehouse), ())
The N elements of a
ROLLUP
specification result in N+1GROUPING SETS
.CUBE
The
CUBE
clause is used to perform aggregations based on a combination of grouping columns specified in theGROUP BY
clause.CUBE
is a shorthand forGROUPING SETS
. For example:GROUP BY warehouse, product WITH CUBE
or
GROUP BY CUBE(warehouse, product)
is equivalent to:
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((warehouse, product), (warehouse), (product), ())
While
GROUP BY CUBE(warehouse, product, location)
is equivalent to the following:
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((warehouse, product, location), (warehouse, product), (warehouse, location), (product, location), (warehouse), (product), (location), ())
The N elements of a
CUBE
specification results in 2^NGROUPING SETS
.aggregate_name
An aggregate function name (MIN, MAX, COUNT, SUM, AVG, etc.).
DISTINCT
Removes duplicates in input rows before they are passed to aggregate functions.
FILTER
Filters the input rows for which the
boolean_expression
in theWHERE
clause evaluates to true are passed to the aggregate function; other rows are discarded.
Mixed/Nested Grouping Analytics
A GROUP BY
clause can include multiple group_expressions
and multiple CUBE
, ROLLUP
, and GROUPING SETS
s.
GROUPING SETS
can also have nested CUBE
, ROLLUP
, or GROUPING SETS
clauses. For example:
GROUPING SETS(ROLLUP(warehouse, location),
CUBE(warehouse, location)),
GROUPING SETS(warehouse,
GROUPING SETS(location,
GROUPING SETS(ROLLUP(warehouse, location),
CUBE(warehouse, location))))
CUBE
and ROLLUP
is just syntax sugar for GROUPING SETS
.
Please refer to the sections above for how to translate CUBE
and ROLLUP
to GROUPING SETS
.
group_expression
can be treated as a single-group GROUPING SETS
in this context.
For multiple GROUPING SETS
in the GROUP BY
clause, Databricks SQL generates a single GROUPING SETS
by doing a cross-product of the original GROUPING SETS
.
For nested GROUPING SETS
in the GROUPING SETS
clause, Databricks SQL takes its grouping sets and strips them. For example, the following queries:
GROUP BY warehouse,
GROUPING SETS((product), ()),
GROUPING SETS((location, size),
(location),
(size),
());
GROUP BY warehouse,
ROLLUP(product),
CUBE(location, size);
are equivalent to the following:
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS( (warehouse, product, location, size),
(warehouse, product, location),
(warehouse, product, size),
(warehouse, product),
(warehouse, location, size),
(warehouse, location),
(warehouse, size),
(warehouse))
While
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS(GROUPING SETS(warehouse),
GROUPING SETS((warehouse, product)))`
is equivalent to
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS((warehouse),
(warehouse, product))`.
Examples
CREATE TEMP VIEW dealer (id, city, car_model, quantity) AS
VALUES (100, 'Fremont', 'Honda Civic', 10),
(100, 'Fremont', 'Honda Accord', 15),
(100, 'Fremont', 'Honda CRV', 7),
(200, 'Dublin', 'Honda Civic', 20),
(200, 'Dublin', 'Honda Accord', 10),
(200, 'Dublin', 'Honda CRV', 3),
(300, 'San Jose', 'Honda Civic', 5),
(300, 'San Jose', 'Honda Accord', 8);
-- Sum of quantity per dealership. Group by `id`.
> SELECT id, sum(quantity) FROM dealer GROUP BY id ORDER BY id;
id sum(quantity)
--- -------------
100 32
200 33
300 13
-- Use column position in GROUP by clause.
> SELECT id, sum(quantity) FROM dealer GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 1;
id sum(quantity)
--- -------------
100 32
200 33
300 13
-- Multiple aggregations.
-- 1. Sum of quantity per dealership.
-- 2. Max quantity per dealership.
> SELECT id, sum(quantity) AS sum, max(quantity) AS max
FROM dealer GROUP BY id ORDER BY id;
id sum max
--- --- ---
100 32 15
200 33 20
300 13 8
-- Count the number of distinct dealers in cities per car_model.
> SELECT car_model, count(DISTINCT city) AS count FROM dealer GROUP BY car_model;
car_model count
------------ -----
Honda Civic 3
Honda CRV 2
Honda Accord 3
-- Count the number of distinct dealers in cities per car_model, using GROUP BY ALL
> SELECT car_model, count(DISTINCT city) AS count FROM dealer GROUP BY ALL;
car_model count
------------ -----
Honda Civic 3
Honda CRV 2
Honda Accord 3
-- Sum of only 'Honda Civic' and 'Honda CRV' quantities per dealership.
> SELECT id,
sum(quantity) FILTER (WHERE car_model IN ('Honda Civic', 'Honda CRV')) AS `sum(quantity)`
FROM dealer
GROUP BY id ORDER BY id;
id sum(quantity)
--- -------------
100 17
200 23
300 5
-- Aggregations using multiple sets of grouping columns in a single statement.
-- Following performs aggregations based on four sets of grouping columns.
-- 1. city, car_model
-- 2. city
-- 3. car_model
-- 4. Empty grouping set. Returns quantities for all city and car models.
> SELECT city, car_model, sum(quantity) AS sum
FROM dealer
GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((city, car_model), (city), (car_model), ())
ORDER BY city;
city car_model sum
--------- ------------ ---
null null 78
null HondaAccord 33
null HondaCRV 10
null HondaCivic 35
Dublin null 33
Dublin HondaAccord 10
Dublin HondaCRV 3
Dublin HondaCivic 20
Fremont null 32
Fremont HondaAccord 15
Fremont HondaCRV 7
Fremont HondaCivic 10
San Jose null 13
San Jose HondaAccord 8
San Jose HondaCivic 5
-- Group by processing with `ROLLUP` clause.
-- Equivalent GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((city, car_model), (city), ())
> SELECT city, car_model, sum(quantity) AS sum
FROM dealer
GROUP BY city, car_model WITH ROLLUP
ORDER BY city, car_model;
city car_model sum
--------- ------------ ---
null null 78
Dublin null 33
Dublin HondaAccord 10
Dublin HondaCRV 3
Dublin HondaCivic 20
Fremont null 32
Fremont HondaAccord 15
Fremont HondaCRV 7
Fremont HondaCivic 10
San Jose null 13
San Jose HondaAccord 8
San Jose HondaCivic 5
-- Group by processing with `CUBE` clause.
-- Equivalent GROUP BY GROUPING SETS ((city, car_model), (city), (car_model), ())
> SELECT city, car_model, sum(quantity) AS sum
FROM dealer
GROUP BY city, car_model WITH CUBE
ORDER BY city, car_model;
city car_model sum
--------- ------------ ---
null null 78
null HondaAccord 33
null HondaCRV 10
null HondaCivic 35
Dublin null 33
Dublin HondaAccord 10
Dublin HondaCRV 3
Dublin HondaCivic 20
Fremont null 32
Fremont HondaAccord 15
Fremont HondaCRV 7
Fremont HondaCivic 10
San Jose null 13
San Jose HondaAccord 8
San Jose HondaCivic 5
--Prepare data for ignore nulls example
> CREATE TEMP VIEW person (id, name, age) AS
VALUES (100, 'Mary', NULL),
(200, 'John', 30),
(300, 'Mike', 80),
(400, 'Dan' , 50);
--Select the first row in column age
> SELECT FIRST(age) FROM person;
first(age, false)
--------------------
NULL
--Get the first row in column `age` ignore nulls,last row in column `id` and sum of column `id`.
> SELECT FIRST(age IGNORE NULLS), LAST(id), SUM(id) FROM person;
first(age, true) last(id, false) sum(id)
------------------- ------------------ ----------
30 400 1000