Playing with Numbers

Almost everything we do in our everyday lives, and particularly in business matters is measures, explained and often and guided by numbers. In business matters, good mathematical analysis of familiar numbers will often show trends and facts that were not apparent initially.
The three classes of Number Functions

ORACLE functions deal with three classes of numbers:

1. Single values

2. Groups of values

3. Lists of values

The classes are distinguished in this way:

A single value is one number, such as these:

A literal number, such as 434.7668

A variable in SQL*PLUS or SQL*FORMS

One number from one column and one row of the database

ORACLE single value functions usually change these values through a calculation.

A group of values is all the numbers in one column from a series of rows, such as the closing stock price for all the rows of stocks in the STOCK table. ORACLE group value functions tell you about the whole group, such as average stock price

A list of values is a series of numbers that can include
Literal numbers, such as 1,5,5.6

Variables in SQLPLUS or SQL*FORMS

Columns such as Opening price, closing price, Bid, Ask

<b>Notation</b>

Functions will be shown with this kind of notation:

FUNCTION (Value[,option])

The function itself will be uppercase. Values and options will be shown in lowercase italics. Any time, the world value appears this way, it represents one of the following: a literal number; the name of a number column in a table; the result of a calculation; or a variable. Because ORACLE does not allow numbers to be used as column names, a literal number should not be in single quotation marks (as a literal string would be in a string function). Column names also must not have quotation marks.

Every function has only one pair or parentheses. Everything that function is to affect, as well as additional instructions you can give the function, goes between its two parentheses.

Valuel value2 - Subtraction

valuel*value2 - Multiplication

Valuel/value2 - Division

ABS(value) - Absolute Value

CEIL(value) - Smallest integer> then or=val

COS(value) - COSine of value

COSH(value) - Hyperbolic COSine of value

EXP(value) - e raised to value EXPonent

FLOOR(value) - Largest integer smaller than or=value

LN(value) - Natural logarithm of value
LOG(value) - Base 10 Logarithm of value
MOD(value,divisor) - MODules
NVL(value,substitute) - Substitute for value if value is NULL
POWER(value,exponent) - value raised to an exponent POWER
ROUND (value,precision) - ROUNDIng of value of precision
SIGN(value) - 1 if value is positive or negative, 0 if zero
SIN(value) - SINe of value
SINH(value) - Hyperbolic SINe of value
SQRT(value) - Square Root of value
TAN(value) - TANgent of value
TANH(value) - Hyperbolic TANgent of value
TRUNC(value) - Value TRUNcated to precision
VSIZE(value) - Storage size of value in ORACLE

Group Value Functions AVG(value) - Average of value for groups of rows
COUNT(value) - COUNT or rows for column
MAX(value) - MAXimum of all values for group or row
MIN(value) - MINimum of all values for group of rows
STDDEV(value) - Standard DEViation of all values
SUM(value) - SUM of all values for group of rows
VARIANCE(value) - VARIANCE of all values for group of row

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