How do I calculate a running SUM on a SQLite query?

Question

How do I get a column that is the sum of all the values before of another column?

Answer 1

Cross join solutions like Diomidis Spinellis suggested take O(N^2) time. A recursive CTE can work faster, if you can stomach the convoluted code.

This produces the same output as his.

WITH RECURSIVE running(id, name, gdppc, rt) AS (
    SELECT row1._rowid_, row1.name, row1.gdppc, COALESCE(row1.gdppc,0)
    FROM gdppc AS row1
    WHERE row1._rowid_ = (
        SELECT a._rowid_
        FROM gdppc AS a
        ORDER BY a.gdppc, a.name, a._rowid_
        LIMIT 1)
    UNION ALL
    SELECT row_n._rowid_, row_n.name, row_n.gdppc, COALESCE(row_n.gdppc,0)+running.rt
    FROM gdppc AS row_n INNER JOIN running
    ON row_n._rowid_ = (
        SELECT a._rowid_
        FROM gdppc AS a
        WHERE (a.gdppc, a.name, a._rowid_) > (running.gdppc, running.name, running.id)
        ORDER BY a.gdppc, a.name, a._rowid_
        LIMIT 1))
SELECT running.name, running.gdppc, running.rt
FROM running;

Ordering and comparisons take care of duplicates, COALESCE is there to ignore NULLs.

If you have a good index, this should be O(N log N). Since SQLite doesn't support cursors, an O(N) solution probably doesn't exist without relying on an external application.