Simple way to calculate median with MySQL

Question

What\'s the simplest (and hopefully not too slow) way to calculate the median with MySQL? I\'ve used AVG(x) for finding the mean, but I\'m having a hard time fi

Answer 1

I used a two query approach:

• first one to get count, min, max and avg
• second one (prepared statement) with a "LIMIT @count/2, 1" and "ORDER BY .." clauses to get the median value

These are wrapped in a function defn, so all values can be returned from one call.

If your ranges are static and your data does not change often, it might be more efficient to precompute/store these values and use the stored values instead of querying from scratch every time.