SQL Server 2000: Length of field in 1/3 (or 2/3) of the records

Question

Is there a simpler/cleaner way to do this using SQL Server 2000?

Every few days I need to do this.

I first look at how many records we have total:

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable

Then I list all the lengths of a certain field:

SELECT LEN(MyText)
FROM MyTable
ORDER BY LEN(MyText) ASC

I then need to scroll down 1/3rd of the way... and note the value. I then need to scroll down 2/3rds of the way... and note the value. And then finally the last value.

I need to find out x, y, and z:

 33% of the records have this field with a length under x bytes
 66% of the records have this field with a length under y bytes
100% of the records have this field with a length under z bytes

Answer 1

In SQL 2005 you could probably use the ranking functions for this. In SQL 2000 I think you're stuck doing something like this.

DECLARE @RC INT 

CREATE TABLE #lengths
(
id INT IDENTITY(1,1),
[length] INT
)

INSERT INTO #lengths
SELECT LEN(MyText)
FROM MyTable
ORDER BY LEN(MyText) ASC


SET @rc= @@ROWCOUNT

SELECT [length] 
FROM #lengths 
WHERE id IN 
(@rc/3, (2*@rc)/3, @rc)

Answer 2

I think you need something like this:

SELECT
 x1.l AS Length,
 x1.n      * 1e2 / (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable) AS [Percent],
 SUM(x2.n) * 1e2 / (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM MyTable) AS CumPercent
FROM (
 SELECT LEN(MyText) AS l, COUNT(*) AS n
 FROM MyTable
 GROUP BY LEN(MyText)
) AS x1
LEFT JOIN (
 SELECT LEN(MyText) AS l, COUNT(*) AS n
 FROM MyTable
 GROUP BY LEN(MyText)
) AS x2
 ON x2.l <= x1.l
GROUP BY x1.l, x1.n
ORDER BY x1.l