MODE¶

Syntax¶

Aggregate function

MODE( <expr1> )

Window function

MODE( <expr1> ) OVER ( [ PARTITION BY <expr2> ] )

Arguments¶

expr1

This expression produces the values that are searched to find the most frequent value. The expression can be of any of the following data types:

• BINARY

• BOOLEAN

• DATE

• FLOAT

• INTEGER

• NUMBER

• TIMESTAMP (TIMESTAMP_LTZ, TIMESTAMP_NTZ, TIMESTAMP_TZ)

• VARCHAR

• VARIANT

This function does not support the following data types:

• ARRAY

• GEOGRAPHY

• OBJECT

expr2

The optional expression on which to partition the data into groups. The output contains the most frequent value for each group/partition.

Returns¶

The data type of the returned value is identical to the data type of the input expression.

Usage notes¶

• If there is a tie for most frequent value (two or more values occur as frequently as each other, and more frequently than any other value), MODE returns one of those values.

• DISTINCT is not supported for this function.

• Even if NULL is the most frequent value, the function does not return NULL (unless all values are NULL).

• When this function is called as a window function, it does not support:

  • An ORDER BY clause within the OVER clause.

  • Explicit window frames.

Examples¶

The following code demonstrates the use of the MODE function:

Create a table and data:

create or replace table aggr(k int, v decimal(10,2));

Get the MODE value for column v. The function returns NULL because there are no rows.

select mode(v) from aggr;
+---------+
| MODE(V) |
|---------|
|    NULL |
+---------+

Insert some rows:

INSERT INTO aggr (k, v) VALUES
    (1, 10), 
    (1, 10), 
    (1, 10), 
    (1, 10), 
    (1, 20), 
    (1, 21);

The MODE function returns the most frequent value 10:

select mode(v) from aggr;
+---------+
| MODE(V) |
|---------|
|   10.00 |
+---------+

Insert some more rows:

INSERT INTO aggr (k, v) VALUES
    (2, 20), 
    (2, 20), 
    (2, 25), 
    (2, 30);

Now there are two most frequent values. The MODE function selects the value 10:

select mode(v) from aggr;
+---------+
| MODE(V) |
|---------|
|   10.00 |
+---------+

Insert a row with a NULL value:

INSERT INTO aggr (k, v) VALUES (3, null);

Get the MODE value for each group. Note that because group k = 3 only contains NULL values, the returned value for that group is NULL.

select k, mode(v) 
    from aggr 
    group by k
    order by k;
+---+---------+
| K | MODE(V) |
|---+---------|
| 1 |   10.00 |
| 2 |   20.00 |
| 3 |    NULL |
+---+---------+

The MODE function can also be used as a basic window function with an OVER clause:

select k, v, mode(v) over (partition by k) 
    from aggr 
    order by k, v;
+---+-------+-------------------------------+
| K |     V | MODE(V) OVER (PARTITION BY K) |
|---+-------+-------------------------------|
| 1 | 10.00 |                         10.00 |
| 1 | 10.00 |                         10.00 |
| 1 | 10.00 |                         10.00 |
| 1 | 10.00 |                         10.00 |
| 1 | 20.00 |                         10.00 |
| 1 | 21.00 |                         10.00 |
| 2 | 20.00 |                         20.00 |
| 2 | 20.00 |                         20.00 |
| 2 | 25.00 |                         20.00 |
| 2 | 30.00 |                         20.00 |
| 3 |  NULL |                          NULL |
+---+-------+-------------------------------+