14.5 Summary

We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter, so don't feel bad if it takes a couple of passes to get a feel for all of the different analytic functions and how they can be applied. You'll find the material easier to digest if you concentrate on one category at a time (Ranking, Windowing, Reporting). If you've been working with Oracle for many years, you are probably chomping at the bit to give these functions a try. Along with being compact and efficient, Oracle's analytic functions keep analytical calculations where they belong?in the database server?instead of relying on procedural languages or spreadsheet macros to finish the job.