ganotedp (11/23/2012)

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Why not DENSE_RANK instead of ROW_NUMBER?

If there were ties and we wanted each of them treated the same then we would use the DENSE_RANK function rather than ROW_NUMBER. In some systems if there is a tie, for example two runners finished in exactly the same time for first place, then there is no following position. That means no second place runner and we skip to third. We would then use the RANK function. In our example, however, we are going to ignore the possibility of ties.