Question

The Employee table holds all employees. Every employee has an Id, and there is also a column for the department Id.

+----+-------+--------+--------------+
| Id | Name  | Salary | DepartmentId |
+----+-------+--------+--------------+
| 1  | Joe   | 85000  | 1            |
| 2  | Henry | 80000  | 2            |
| 3  | Sam   | 60000  | 2            |
| 4  | Max   | 90000  | 1            |
| 5  | Janet | 69000  | 1            |
| 6  | Randy | 85000  | 1            |
| 7  | Will  | 70000  | 1            |
+----+-------+--------+--------------+

The Department table holds all departments of the company.

+----+----------+
| Id | Name     |
+----+----------+
| 1  | IT       |
| 2  | Sales    |
+----+----------+

Write a SQL query to find employees who earn the top three salaries in each of the department. For the above tables, your SQL query should return the following rows (order of rows does not matter).

+------------+----------+--------+
| Department | Employee | Salary |
+------------+----------+--------+
| IT         | Max      | 90000  |
| IT         | Randy    | 85000  |
| IT         | Joe      | 85000  |
| IT         | Will     | 70000  |
| Sales      | Henry    | 80000  |
| Sales      | Sam      | 60000  |
+------------+----------+--------+

Explanation:

In IT department, Max earns the highest salary, both Randy and Joe earn the second highest salary, and Will earns the third highest salary. There are only two employees in the Sales department, Henry earns the highest salary while Sam earns the second highest salary.

SQL Schema

Create table If Not Exists Employee (Id int, Name varchar(255), Salary int, DepartmentId int)
Create table If Not Exists Department (Id int, Name varchar(255))
Truncate table Employee
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('1', 'Joe', '85000', '1')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('2', 'Henry', '80000', '2')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('3', 'Sam', '60000', '2')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('4', 'Max', '90000', '1')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('5', 'Janet', '69000', '1')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('6', 'Randy', '85000', '1')
insert into Employee (Id, Name, Salary, DepartmentId) values ('7', 'Will', '70000', '1')
Truncate table Department
insert into Department (Id, Name) values ('1', 'IT')
insert into Department (Id, Name) values ('2', 'Sales')

My Interesting Code

select temp2.Department, temp2.Employee, temp2.Salary
from (
    select dense_rank() over(partition by DepartmentId order by Salary desc) as 'Rank',
        temp1.Department,
        temp1.Employee,
        temp1.Salary
    from (
        select Employee.Name as Employee, Salary, DepartmentId, Department.Name as Department
        from Employee
        inner join Department on Employee.DepartmentId = Department.Id
    ) temp1
)temp2
where temp2.Rank <= 3

My Perspective

This question is similar to the #184. Firstly, you can combine the two tables, making the all the data covered in one table. Then, you can use “dense_rank()” to rank the salary. More importantly, you should use “partition by” rather than “group by”, which have differences. And if you want to use “Rank” as the column name, you need to add ‘’.

I am confused that the second “select” cannot use “*”, so I can just type all the column names. It is a little bit foolish. Finally, select the top 3 salaries' people of each department.

Also, there are two useful links, and I think they can help you. (chinese version)