Term: FIRST

Definition:
The Oracle PL/SQL FIRST function can be used for both aggregate and analytic action on the group of logically sorted rows. It operates on values of these rows that are eligible to be ranked "first" or "last". The rows can be grouped using any of the analytic functions like MIN, MAX, SUM, AVG, COUNT, VARIANCE or STDDEV.

Example Syntax:

[AGGREGATE FUNCTION] KEEP (DENSE_RANK FIRST ORDER BY [COLUMN | EXPRESSION] [ASC | DESC] )

OVER (PARTITION BY [COLUMN] )

1. FIRST and LAST are the only functions that deviate from the general syntax of analytic functions.
   
2. FIRST and LAST do not have the ORDER_BY inside the OVER clause.
   
3. FIRST and LAST do not support any <window> clause.

SELECT DEPTNO, ENAME ,SAL

       MIN(sal) KEEP (DENSE_RANK FIRST ORDER_BY sal) OVER (PARTITION BY deptno) "Lowest"

FROM   EMP

ORDER BY deptno, sal;

• Analytic Functions: FIRST
• Array Processing Example with FIRST
• Number Function Examples: FIRST
• Oracle Rank: FIRST

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