Oracle Database 11g The Complete Reference

CHAPTER 12Grouping Things Together

Up to this point, you've seen how SQL can select rows of information from database tables, how the where clause can limit the number of rows being returned to only those that meet certain rules that you define, and how the rows returned can be sorted in ascending or descending sequence using order by. You've also seen how the values in columns can be modified by character, NUMBER, and DATE functions, and how group functions can tell you something about the whole set of rows.

Beyond the group functions you've seen, there are also two group clauses: having and group by. These are parallel to the where and order by clauses, except that they act on groups, not on individual rows. These clauses can provide very powerful ...