advanced

Pivot Basics

6 min readLast updated: 2026-07-23

Overview

Pivoting transforms row-level categorical values into separate columns to build cross-tabulation reports.

Code Examples

SQL

sql
-- Conditional Aggregation Pivot (ANSI SQL Standard)
SELECT 
  year,
  SUM(CASE WHEN month = 'Jan' THEN sales ELSE 0 END) AS Jan_Sales,
  SUM(CASE WHEN month = 'Feb' THEN sales ELSE 0 END) AS Feb_Sales
FROM monthly_revenue
GROUP BY year;

Summary

Pivoting converts row data into columns using conditional aggregations or native PIVOT clauses.