Question

I’m aware of the ABS and Round functions in SQL Server but I believe my problem is a little different and I’m not sure how to use these to achieve the desired result.

Say I have a number: 8000

And I have a query that returns this list of numbers: 0, 5000, 10000, 15000

If I use the ABS function with this list e.g

DECLARE @target as INT
SET @target = 8000
SELECT TOP(1) @result AS Number
FROM dbo.Numbers
ORDER BY ABS(Number - @target)

I get 10000

Which is expected

But how can I make this return 5000 i.e. I always get the result rounded down?

Answer 1

Understanding your question to mean you want the nearest match without going over:

Add a WHERE Number <= @target.