What is your full query? And what exactly are you looking for?

The equivalent of
select avg(sum(vsize(text_info))) from detail_info group by id;

gives me a single number, which is the average of all the sums.

select avg(vsize(text_info)) from detail_info group by id;

gives me the average size of text_info for each id.

select avg(vsize(text_info)) from detail_info; -- no group by

gives me the average size of text_info regardless of id.

HTH,
-Chris

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John DeUnger
> Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 6:49 PM
> To: LazyDBA.com Discussion
> Subject: calculation of averages
>
>
> Dear Gurus:
> Need some help in doing a calculation.
> I have parent-child tables.
> I want to figure out the total length of the text_info column
> for a record.
> The master table has one record - and detail info contains
> the children.
> I can have many children using the id, and seq columns.
>
> detail_info (child table) detail_master
>
> id varchar2(30) id
> seq number date
> text_info varchar2(2000) address.... (other stuff)
> date
>
> if I do a -
>
> select sum(vsize(text_info) from detail_info
> group by id.
>
> This will give me id sum(vsize) of the records for the id.
> 001 458 (1 record)
> 002 88888 (3 records)
>
> I will get the count of the all the records for each id.
>
> Then what I am trying to do is take the sum for each id and do an
> average to show the an average number.
>
> I can't seem to do this with an avg(sum(vsize(text_detail)....
> Is my use of the group by id causing a problem ? Maybe it's cause
> the text_info field is varchar2 ???
>
> How can I accomplish this ?
>
> Thanks.
> Steff DeUnger
>

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