MySQL equivalent of ORACLES rank() - oracle

Question

Oracle has 2 functions - rank() and dense_rank() - which i've found very useful for some applications. I am doing something in mysql now and was wondering if they have something equivalent to those?

Answer 1

Nothing directly equivalent, but you can fake it with some (not terribly efficient) self-joins. Some sample code from a collection of MySQL query howtos:
SELECT v1.name, v1.votes, COUNT(v2.votes) AS Rank
FROM votes v1
JOIN votes v2 ON v1.votes < v2.votes OR (v1.votes=v2.votes and v1.name = v2.name)
GROUP BY v1.name, v1.votes
ORDER BY v1.votes DESC, v1.name DESC;
+-------+-------+------+
| name | votes | Rank |
+-------+-------+------+
| Green | 50 | 1 |
| Black | 40 | 2 |
| White | 20 | 3 |
| Brown | 20 | 3 |
| Jones | 15 | 5 |
| Smith | 10 | 6 |
+-------+-------+------+

Answer 2

how about this "dense_rank implement" in MySQL
CREATE TABLE `person` (
`id` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`first_name` varchar(20) DEFAULT NULL,
`age` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`gender` char(1) DEFAULT NULL);
INSERT INTO `person` VALUES
(1,'Bob',25,'M'),
(2,'Jane',20,'F'),
(3,'Jack',30,'M'),
(4,'Bill',32,'M'),
(5,'Nick',22,'M'),
(6,'Kathy',18,'F'),
(7,'Steve',36,'M'),
(8,'Anne',25,'F'),
(9,'Mike',25,'M');
the data before dense_rank() like this
mysql> select * from person;
+------+------------+------+--------+
| id | first_name | age | gender |
+------+------------+------+--------+
| 1 | Bob | 25 | M |
| 2 | Jane | 20 | F |
| 3 | Jack | 30 | M |
| 4 | Bill | 32 | M |
| 5 | Nick | 22 | M |
| 6 | Kathy | 18 | F |
| 7 | Steve | 36 | M |
| 8 | Anne | 25 | F |
| 9 | Mike | 25 | M |
+------+------------+------+--------+
9 rows in set (0.00 sec)
the data after dense_rank() like this,including "partition by" function
+------------+--------+------+------+
| first_name | gender | age | rank |
+------------+--------+------+------+
| Anne | F | 25 | 1 |
| Jane | F | 20 | 2 |
| Kathy | F | 18 | 3 |
| Steve | M | 36 | 1 |
| Bill | M | 32 | 2 |
| Jack | M | 30 | 3 |
| Mike | M | 25 | 4 |
| Bob | M | 25 | 4 |
| Nick | M | 22 | 6 |
+------------+--------+------+------+
9 rows in set (0.00 sec)
the query statement is
select first_name,t1.gender,age,FIND_IN_SET(age,t1.age_set) as rank from person t2,
(select gender,group_concat(age order by age desc) as age_set from person group by gender) t1
where t1.gender=t2.gender
order by t1.gender,rank