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> Reference material for MEDIAN

# MEDIAN

Returns the middle value in a given column. If number of values are even, `MEDIAN` returns the average of the two middle values.

## Syntax

```sql theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
MEDIAN(<value>) [FILTER ([WHERE] <condition>)]
```

## Parameters

| Parameter     | Description                                                       | Supported input types                       |
| :------------ | :---------------------------------------------------------------- | :------------------------------------------ |
| `<value>`     | The expression used to calculate the median value.                | `DOUBLE PRECISION`, `REAL`, `BIGINT`, `INT` |
| `<condition>` | An optional boolean expression to filter rows used in aggregation | `BOOL`                                      |

## Return Type

`MEDIAN` returns a value of type `DOUBLE PRECISION`.

* This function ignores `NULL` values.
* If the input is empty, the function returns `NULL`.

## Examples

**Example**

The following query uses `UNNEST` to convert an array \[1,2,5] into a column, calculates the median value, and returns it as `result`:

```sql theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
SELECT MEDIAN(a) as result FROM UNNEST(array[1,2,5]) as a;
```

**Returns**

| result (DOUBLE PRECISION) |
| :------------------------ |
| 2                         |

The previous code example returns the middle element as the median because the number of elements in the array is odd.

**Example**

The following query uses `UNNEST` to convert an array \[100, NULL, 1, 2, 5] into a column, calculates the median value, and returns it as `result`:

```sql theme={"theme":{"light":"github-light","dark":"github-dark"}}
SELECT MEDIAN(a) as result FROM UNNEST(array[100,NULL,1,2,5]) as a;
```

**Returns**

| result (DOUBLE PRECISION) |
| :------------------------ |
| 3.5                       |

The previous code example returns the average of the two middle elements after sorting the values, because the number of non-`NULL` elements is even after ignoring `NULL` values. The average of the middle elements, `2` and `5`,  is calculated as : `((2+5)/2)`.