Dividing 2 numbers returns 0

Question

I\'m trying to divide 2 counts in order to return a percentage.

The following query is returning 0:

select (
    (select COUNT(*) from sax         


        

Answer 1

I would do it differently, using two sums:

select sum
       ( case
         when endOfUse is null and addDate >= '1/1/2014'
         then 1
         else 0
         end
       )
       * 100.0 -- if you want the usual 0..100 range for percentages
       /
       sum
       ( case
         when addDate >= '1/1/2014'
         then 1
         else 0
         end
       )
       percentage
from   saxref..AuthCycle

Answer 2

It can be done more succinctly by moving the common condition to the where clause:

select sum(case when endOfUse is null then 1 end) * 100.0 / count(*) percentage
from saxref..AuthCycle
where addDate >= '1/1/2014'

Note how you don't need the case of 0 for false either, since nulls are ignored with sum()

Answer 3

The issue is caused because you are dividing 2 int values, which by default will output an int as it takes the data types used in the calculation to determine the data type of the output, so effectively if you do this:

select 50/100 as result

You get 0.5 output as 0 as it rounds it to an int (no decimal places).

If you however specify decimals:

select 50.0/100.0 as result

You would get 0.5 as a decimal, which you could multiply by 100 to get 50%.

So updating your syntax to multiply by 1.0 and making the counts into decimals would give you the correct result:

select (
(select COUNT(*) from saxref..AuthCycle where endOfUse is null and addDate >= '1/1/2014')*1.0 / 
(select COUNT(*) from saxref..AuthCycle where addDate >= '1/1/2014')*1.0
) as Percentage