Ranking Functions (Transact-SQL)

Ranking functions return a ranking value for each row in a partition. Depending on the function that is used, some rows might receive the same value as other rows. Ranking functions are nondeterministic.

Transact-SQL provides the following ranking functions:

Examples

The following shows the four ranking functions used in the same query. For function specific examples, see each ranking function.

USE AdventureWorks2012;
GO
SELECT p.FirstName, p.LastName
    ,ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.PostalCode) AS "Row Number"
    ,RANK() OVER (ORDER BY a.PostalCode) AS Rank
    ,DENSE_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY a.PostalCode) AS "Dense Rank"
    ,NTILE(4) OVER (ORDER BY a.PostalCode) AS Quartile
    ,s.SalesYTD
    ,a.PostalCode
FROM Sales.SalesPerson AS s 
    INNER JOIN Person.Person AS p 
        ON s.BusinessEntityID = p.BusinessEntityID
    INNER JOIN Person.Address AS a 
        ON a.AddressID = p.BusinessEntityID
WHERE TerritoryID IS NOT NULL AND SalesYTD <> 0;

Here is the result set.

See Also

Reference

Built-in Functions (Transact-SQL)

OVER Clause (Transact-SQL)