I want to calculate a moving average using SQL window functions. The following example of a 2 "day" moving average basically works fine, but It also calculates an average if only one data point is available. I rather want the average to be null as long as not enough data is available
create table average(
nr int,
value float
);
insert into average values (1, 2), (2, 4), (3, 6), (3, 8), (4, 10);
SELECT
nr,
value,
AVG(value) OVER (ORDER BY nr ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND 0 FOLLOWING)::FLOAT AS "Moving-Average-2"
FROM average;
result:
1 2 2
2 4 3
3 6 5
3 8 7
4 10 9
expected result:
1 2 null
2 4 3
3 6 5
3 8 7
4 10 9
EDIT 1: Of course the average can be anything not only 2.
You could use another window function (COUNT()
) to make sure that at least two records are available in the window before doing the computation, like:
SELECT
nr,
value,
CASE WHEN COUNT(*) OVER(ORDER BY nr ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND 0 FOLLOWING) > 1
THEN AVG(value) OVER (ORDER BY nr ROWS BETWEEN 1 PRECEDING AND 0 FOLLOWING)::FLOAT
ELSE NULL
END AS "Moving-Average-2"
FROM average;
| nr | value | Moving-Average-2 |
| --- | ----- | ---------------- |
| 1 | 2 | |
| 2 | 4 | 3 |
| 3 | 6 | 5 |
| 3 | 8 | 7 |
| 4 | 10 | 9 |