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Asked: 2026-05-13T09:05:11+00:00

I want to do some math on the previous rows in an SQL request

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I want to do some math on the previous rows in an SQL request in order to avoid doing it in my code.

I have a table representing the sales of two entities (the data represented here is doesn’t make much sense and it’s just an excerpt) : 

YEAR    ID      SALES             PURCHASE         MARGIN
2009    1       10796820,57       2662369,19       8134451,38
2009    2        2472271,53       2066312,34        405959,19
2008    1        9641213,19       1223606,68       8417606,51
2008    2        3436363,86       2730035,19        706328,67

I want to know how the sales, purchase, margin… have evolved and compare one year to the previous one.

In short I want an SQL result with the evolutions pre-computed like this :

YEAR    ID    SALES         SALES_EVOLUTION    PURCHASE      PURCHASE_EVOLUTION  MARGIN        MARGIN_EVOLUTION
2009    1     10796820,57   11,99              2662369,19    117,58              8134451,38     -3,36
2009    2      2472271,53   -28,06             2066312,34    -24,31               405959,19    -42,53
2008    1      9641213,19                      1223606,68                        8417606,51 
2008    2      3436363,86                      2730035,19                         706328,67

I could do some ugly stuff :

SELECT *, YEAR, ID, SALES , (SALES/(SELECT SALES FROM TABLE WHERE YEAR = OUTER_TABLE.YEAR-1 AND ID = OUTER_TABLE.ID) -1)*100 as SALES_EVOLUTION (...) 
FROM TABLE as OUTER_TABLE 
ORDER BY YEAR DESC, ID ASC

But I have arround 20 fields for which I would have to do a nested query, meaning I would have a very huge and ugly query.

Is there a better way to do this, with less SQL ?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Using sql server (but this should work for almost any sql), with the table provided you can use a LEFT JOIN

    DECLARE @Table TABLE(
        [YEAR] INT,
        ID INT,
        SALES FLOAT,           
        PURCHASE FLOAT,     
        MARGIN FLOAT
)

INSERT INTO @Table ([YEAR],ID,SALES,PURCHASE,MARGIN) SELECT 2009,1,10796820.57,2662369.19,8134451.38 
INSERT INTO @Table ([YEAR],ID,SALES,PURCHASE,MARGIN) SELECT 2009,2,2472271.53,2066312.34,405959.19 
INSERT INTO @Table ([YEAR],ID,SALES,PURCHASE,MARGIN) SELECT 2008,1,9641213.19,1223606.68,8417606.51 
INSERT INTO @Table ([YEAR],ID,SALES,PURCHASE,MARGIN) SELECT 2008,2,3436363.86,2730035.19,706328.67 


SELECT  cur.*,
        ((cur.Sales / prev.SALES) - 1) * 100
FROM    @Table cur LEFT JOIN
        @Table prev ON cur.ID = prev.ID AND cur.[YEAR] - 1 = prev.[YEAR]

    The LEFT JOIN will allow you to still see values from 2008, where an INNER JOIN would not.

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