Returns the variance of a set of numbers.
| Parameter | Description | 
|---|---|
| expression | Any numeric data type (FLOAT, REAL, or DOUBLE) expression. The expression (commonly a column name) whose sample-based variance is calculated over a set of rows. | 
DOUBLE
SELECT Salary FROM Employees WHERE DepartmentID = 300
| salary | 
|---|
| 51432.000 | 
| 57090.000 | 
| 42300.000 | 
| 43700.00 | 
| 36500.000 | 
| 138948.000 | 
| 31200.000 | 
| 58930.00 | 
| 75400.00 | 
The following statement returns the value 1063923790.99999994:
SELECT VARIANCE ( Salary ) FROM Employees WHERE DepartmentID = 300
SELECT UnitPrice FROM Products WHERE name = 'Tee Shirt'
| UnitPrice | 
|---|
| 9.00 | 
| 14.00 | 
| 14.00 | 
The following statement returns the value 8.33333333333334327:
SELECT VARIANCE ( UnitPrice ) FROM Products WHERE name = 'Tee Shirt'
The formula used to calculate VARIANCE is
VARIANCE returns a result of data type double-precision floating-point. If applied to the empty set, the result is NULL, which returns NULL for a one-element input set.
VARIANCE does not support the keyword DISTINCT. A syntax error is returned if DISTINCT is used with VARIANCE.