Aggregate function
In database management, an aggregate function or aggregation function is a function where multiple values are processed together to form a single summary statistic.
Common aggregate functions include:
Others include:
- Nanmean (mean ignoring NaN values, also known as "nil" or "null")
- Stddev
Formally, an aggregate function takes as input a set, a multiset (bag), or a list from some input domain I and outputs an element of an output domain O. The input and output domains may be the same, such as for SUM
, or may be different, such as for COUNT
.
Aggregate functions occur commonly in numerous programming languages, in spreadsheets, and in relational algebra.
The listagg
function, as defined in the SQL:2016 standard
aggregates data from multiple rows into a single concatenated string.
In the entity relationship diagram, aggregation is represented as seen in Figure 1 with a rectangle around the relationship and its entities to indicate that it is being treated as an aggregate entity.