As a second example, consider the case where you're computing sales for each month orders were placed:
SELECT EXTRACT(year FROM orderdate) AS year, EXTRACT(month FROM orderdate) AS month,sum(netamount) as sales FROM orders GROUP BY year,month ORDER BY year,month; year | month | sales ------+-------+----------- 2004 | 1 | 199444.50 2004 | 2 | 200269.86 2004 | 3 | 194516.68 2004 | 4 | 200131.18 2004 | 5 | 197131.77 2004 | 6 | 199919.21 2004 | 7 | 190953.70 2004 | 8 | 194102.55 2004 | 9 | 196798.83 2004 | 10 | 195798.80 2004 | 11 | 199882.86 2004 | 12 | 202769.80
What if you wanted a cumulative total at each point during the year? As that problem also requires referencing things that are ...