[HIVE-362] avg() ignores null values; consider variant that doesn't

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Won't Fix
• Component/s: Query Processor
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Adam Kramer
• Created: 24/Mar/09 17:41
• Updated: 14/Apr/09 05:23
• Resolved: 14/Apr/09 05:23

Description

Some of the current aggregates (sum, avg) have a fairly standard behavior: If any item in the list is NULL, the sum, average, etc., cannot be computed. And so, NULL is returned.

1) If this is the case, the query should return much faster--see a null, return NULL, exit(0).

2) It would be nice to have versions or ways to use these functions with NULL data--specifically, to treat the NULL as zero or to ignore the NULL and return the results for non-NULL data.

This also would apply to the variance functions referenced in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HIVE-165