RANK() and DENSE_RANK() differences

The Window Ranking functions: ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), and DENSE_RANK() each rank rows with an increasing integer value. I wrote a previous blog post, ROW_NUMBER() Window Function – find duplicate values, where I covered how the ROW_NUMBER() window function can be used to target any duplicate rows, with the use of the PARTITION BY clause in the OVER() clause. In this post, I cover the differences between RANK(), and DENSE_RANK() in handling any ties according to the sorting performed by the ORDER BY clause with regards to the assigned increasing integer. Continue reading and see examples…