MIN and MAX

When working with data, it is often useful to have a general sense of the spread and distribution of your data. Simple functions like MAX() and MIN() allow us to do just that.

MAX()

The MAX() function returns the maximum value, typically numeric or date from a specific column in a query. For example, we can return the maximum price from the products table and associated information using the query below:

SELECT 
    MAX(price) AS maximum_price     
FROM product

 maximum_price
---------------
       3899.99
(1 row)

MIN()

Conceptually similar to the MAX() function, the MIN() function returns the minimum value of the column specified in the query. Let's see the exact opposite of the query we have above.

SELECT 
    MIN(price) AS minimum_price,
    MAX(price) AS maximum_price     
FROM product

 minimum_price | maximum_price
---------------+---------------
         24.99 |       3899.99
(1 row)