SQL query for finding cumulative figures of a field/column

One thing everytime in our reporting comes the cumulative figure which we do best in excel by putting the values in a column and next to the column put a formula and drag.

 

But what if data resides in Database Server and we need to programmatically plot the cumulative figure to a graph and/or the from a huge number of rows you’ll need to aggregate then cumulate.

 

 

Say for example we have a table which returns when queried

 

Select * from dailysales

 

.

Date	No_Of_Sales
2008-04-16 15:03:21.080	3
2008-04-17 15:03:21.080	2
2008-04-18 10:07:19.507	5
...	...

 

Now we need another column to show the cumulative figure like.

 

For that we can use the following query:

 

select Date,  No_Of_Sales,

(select sum(No_Of_Sales)

from dailysales where Date<=d.Date) as Running_Total

from dailysales d

order by date

 

 

Which gives

 

 

Date	No_Of_Sales	Running_Total
2008-04-16 15:03:21.080	3	3
2008-04-17 15:03:21.080	2	5
2008-04-18 10:07:19.507	5	10
...	...	...