Calculate a Running Total in SQL Server

Question

Imagine the following table (called TestTable):

id     somedate    somevalue
--     --------    ---------
45     01/Jan/09   3
23     08/Jan/09   5
12     02/Feb/09   0
77     14/Feb/09   7
39     20/Feb/09   34
33     02/Mar/09   6

I would like a query that returns a running total in date order, like:

id     somedate    somevalue  runningtotal
--     --------    ---------  ------------
45     01/Jan/09   3          3
23     08/Jan/09   5          8
12     02/Feb/09   0          8
77     14/Feb/09   7          15  
39     20/Feb/09   34         49
33     02/Mar/09   6          55

I know there are various ways of doing this in SQL Server 2000 / 2005 / 2008.

I am particularly interested in this sort of method that uses the aggregating-set-statement trick:

INSERT INTO @AnotherTbl(id, somedate, somevalue, runningtotal) 
   SELECT id, somedate, somevalue, null
   FROM TestTable
   ORDER BY somedate

DECLARE @RunningTotal int
SET @RunningTotal = 0

UPDATE @AnotherTbl
SET @RunningTotal = runningtotal = @RunningTotal + somevalue
FROM @AnotherTbl

... this is very efficient but I have heard there are issues around this because you can't necessarily guarantee that the UPDATE statement will process the rows in the correct order. Maybe we can get some definitive answers about that issue.

But maybe there are other ways that people can suggest?

edit: Now with a SqlFiddle with the setup and the 'update trick' example above

Answer 1

BEGIN TRAN
CREATE TABLE #Table (_Id INT IDENTITY(1,1) ,id INT ,    somedate VARCHAR(100) , somevalue INT)


INSERT INTO #Table ( id  ,    somedate  , somevalue  )
SELECT 45 , '01/Jan/09', 3 UNION ALL
SELECT 23 , '08/Jan/09', 5 UNION ALL
SELECT 12 , '02/Feb/09', 0 UNION ALL
SELECT 77 , '14/Feb/09', 7 UNION ALL
SELECT 39 , '20/Feb/09', 34 UNION ALL
SELECT 33 , '02/Mar/09', 6 

;WITH CTE ( _Id, id  ,  _somedate  , _somevalue ,_totvalue ) AS
(

 SELECT _Id , id  ,    somedate  , somevalue ,somevalue
 FROM #Table WHERE _id = 1
 UNION ALL
 SELECT #Table._Id , #Table.id  , somedate  , somevalue , somevalue + _totvalue
 FROM #Table,CTE 
 WHERE #Table._id > 1 AND CTE._Id = ( #Table._id-1 )
)

SELECT * FROM CTE

ROLLBACK TRAN

Answer 2

You can also denormalize - store running totals in the same table:

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/alexander_kuznetsov/archive/2009/01/23/denormalizing-to-enforce-business-rules-running-totals.aspx

Selects work much faster than any other solutions, but modifications may be slower

Answer 3

Using join Another variation is to use join. Now the query could look like:

    SELECT a.id, a.value, SUM(b.Value)FROM   RunTotalTestData a,
    RunTotalTestData b
    WHERE b.id <= a.id
    GROUP BY a.id, a.value 
    ORDER BY a.id;

for more you can visite this link http://askme.indianyouth.info/details/calculating-simple-running-totals-in-sql-server-12

Answer 4

While Sam Saffron did great work on it, he still didn't provide recursive common table expression code for this problem. And for us who working with SQL Server 2008 R2 and not Denali, it's still fastest way to get running total, it's about 10 times faster than cursor on my work computer for 100000 rows, and it's also inline query.
So, here it is (I'm supposing that there's an ord column in the table and it's sequential number without gaps, for fast processing there also should be unique constraint on this number):

;with 
CTE_RunningTotal
as
(
    select T.ord, T.total, T.total as running_total
    from #t as T
    where T.ord = 0
    union all
    select T.ord, T.total, T.total + C.running_total as running_total
    from CTE_RunningTotal as C
        inner join #t as T on T.ord = C.ord + 1
)
select C.ord, C.total, C.running_total
from CTE_RunningTotal as C
option (maxrecursion 0)

-- CPU 140, Reads 110014, Duration 132

sql fiddle demo

update I also was curious about this update with variable or quirky update. So usually it works ok, but how we can be sure that it works every time? well, here's a little trick (found it here - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic802558-203-21.aspx#bm981258) - you just check current and previous ord and use 1/0 assignment in case they are different from what you expecting:

declare @total int, @ord int

select @total = 0, @ord = -1

update #t set
    @total = @total + total,
    @ord = case when ord <> @ord + 1 then 1/0 else ord end,
    ------------------------
    running_total = @total

select * from #t

-- CPU 0, Reads 58, Duration 139

From what I've seen if you have proper clustered index/primary key on your table (in our case it would be index by ord_id) update will proceed in a linear way all the time (never encountered divide by zero). That said, it's up to you to decide if you want to use it in production code :)

Answer 5

Assuming that windowing works on SQL Server 2008 like it does elsewhere (that I've tried), give this a go:

select testtable.*, sum(somevalue) over(order by somedate)
from testtable
order by somedate;

MSDN says it's available in SQL Server 2008 (and maybe 2005 as well?) but I don't have an instance to hand to try it.

EDIT: well, apparently SQL Server doesn't allow a window specification ("OVER(...)") without specifying "PARTITION BY" (dividing the result up into groups but not aggregating in quite the way GROUP BY does). Annoying-- the MSDN syntax reference suggests that its optional, but I only have SqlServer 2000 instances around at the moment.

The query I gave works in both Oracle 10.2.0.3.0 and PostgreSQL 8.4-beta. So tell MS to catch up ;)

Answer 6

Update, if you are running SQL Server 2012 see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10309947

The problem is that the SQL Server implementation of the Over clause is somewhat limited.

Oracle (and ANSI-SQL) allow you to do things like:

 SELECT somedate, somevalue,
  SUM(somevalue) OVER(ORDER BY somedate 
     ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) 
          AS RunningTotal
  FROM Table

SQL Server gives you no clean solution to this problem. My gut is telling me that this is one of those rare cases where a cursor is the fastest, though I will have to do some benchmarking on big results.

The update trick is handy but I feel its fairly fragile. It seems that if you are updating a full table then it will proceed in the order of the primary key. So if you set your date as a primary key ascending you will probably be safe. But you are relying on an undocumented SQL Server implementation detail (also if the query ends up being performed by two procs I wonder what will happen, see: MAXDOP):

Full working sample:

drop table #t 
create table #t ( ord int primary key, total int, running_total int)

insert #t(ord,total)  values (2,20)
-- notice the malicious re-ordering 
insert #t(ord,total) values (1,10)
insert #t(ord,total)  values (3,10)
insert #t(ord,total)  values (4,1)

declare @total int 
set @total = 0
update #t set running_total = @total, @total = @total + total 

select * from #t
order by ord 

ord         total       running_total
----------- ----------- -------------
1           10          10
2           20          30
3           10          40
4           1           41

You asked for a benchmark this is the lowdown.

The fastest SAFE way of doing this would be the Cursor, it is an order of magnitude faster than the correlated sub-query of cross-join.

The absolute fastest way is the UPDATE trick. My only concern with it is that I am not certain that under all circumstances the update will proceed in a linear way. There is nothing in the query that explicitly says so.

Bottom line, for production code I would go with the cursor.

Test data:

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 #t (ord, total) values (@i,  rand() * 100) 
    set @i = @i +1
end
commit

Test 1:

SELECT ord,total, 
    (SELECT SUM(total) 
        FROM #t b 
        WHERE b.ord <= a.ord) AS b 
FROM #t a

-- CPU 11731, Reads 154934, Duration 11135 

Test 2:

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

-- CPU 16053, Reads 154935, Duration 4647

Test 3:

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

-- CPU 359, Reads 30392, Duration 496

Test 4:

declare @total int 
set @total = 0
update #t set running_total = @total, @total = @total + total 

select * from #t

-- CPU 0, Reads 58, Duration 139