MySQL avg() Function

Last Updated: 29 June, 2023

The AVG function in MySQL is used to calculate the average value of a set of numerical values. It is commonly used with the SELECT statement to retrieve the average value of a column in a table.

The syntax for the AVG function is as follows:

 SELECT AVG(column_name) FROM table_name;

Here's a breakdown of the syntax:

• AVG: This is the function name that calculates the average.
• column_name: This is the name of the column for which you want to calculate the average.
• table_name: This is the name of the table that contains the column.

Here's an example that demonstrates the usage of the AVG function.

Let's assume we have a table called "grades" with a column "score" containing numeric values:

 CREATE TABLE grades (
  id INT PRIMARY KEY,
  score INT
 );

 INSERT INTO grades (id, score) VALUES
 (1, 90),
 (2, 85),
 (3, 95),
 (4, 80),
 (5, 92);

To calculate the average score from the "score" column, we can use the AVG function as follows:

 SELECT AVG(score) FROM grades;

The result of this query would be:

  +-----------+
  | AVG(score)|
  +-----------+
  |     88.4  |
  +-----------+

So, the average score in this example is 88.4.